and every river of any magnitude will be found able to furnish evidence of a long-passed-away race that once dwelt on its waters.[1]
Thus far, I believe, we have not been able to recognise in our Irish lakes the Pæonian system of constructing these lake-cabins—that is, on platforms supported by deeply-driven piles—which we have seen was so generally followed in Helvetia. On the other hand, the crannoge system of Ireland seems well-nigh without a parallel in Swiss waters. We have spoken of the two Steinberge of the Bienne Lake, and there is a yet nearer approach to a crannoge in a small island of the stone period in the little Inkwyl Lake; but here, I believe, terminates the list of artificial islands in this region.
The purpose of all, however, was alike the same. From the "walled cities" of the Anakim to "the moated grange" of our own land, the habitations of man in every age will be found to testify to his jealousy of surprise, whether by a treacherous neighbour or an open foe. The yearning for security, and the love of independence that saved the Pæonians from the Persian yoke, and in after ages laid the foundations of Venice in the lagunes of the Adriatic, was no less powerful in the bosoms of the first inhabitants of Helvetia and Ierne.
March 28, 1859.
- ↑ To such probably belong the remains found on draining a mere near Wretham Hall, Thetford, Norfolk. Here, in a deposit of peaty mud, twenty feet in depth, "numerous posts of oak wood, shaped and pointed by human art, were found standing erect, entirely buried in the peat." At a depth of from five to six feet from the surface were found some very large antlers of the red deer, which had evidently been sawn off. It is to be regretted that no further investigation seems to have been made.— Quarterly Geological Journal, vol. xii. p. 355.
It is said too that these lake-buildings have been noticed as still existing in several parts of Asia. In a series of bas-reliefs found at Kouyunjik in the palace of Sennacherib, are represented the conquests of the Assyrians over a tribe who inhabited a marshy region; in one of these slabs (engraved in " The Monuments of Nineveh," second series, pl. 25), we see represented several small artificial islands, formed apparently by wattling together the tall reeds which grew in the marshes, and erecting a platform in which are sheltered five or six people. It has been conjectured by Mr. Layard, that these slabs represent the conquests over the inhabitants of the lower part of the Euphrates. See Nineveh and Babylon, 1853, p. 584. The notice of the habitations of the Papoos, in New Guinea, would seem a complete parallel of the Helvetian and Pæonian constructions.—Dumont d'Urville's Voyages, tom. iv. p. 607. Rawlinson's Herodotus, lib. v. cap. 16, note.
