[1] This grand total of the population, on Dec. 1, 1888, is taken from the provisional Census Tables issued by the Swiss Government in 1889.
THE STORY OF SWITZERLAND.
I.
THE LAKE DWELLERS.
Who first lived in this country of ours? What and what manner of men were they who first settled on its virgin soil and made it "home"? These questions naturally present themselves every now and then to most thoughtful people. And the man with any pretensions to culture feels an interest in the history of other countries besides his own.
But however interesting these questions as to primary colonizations may be, they are usually exactly the most difficult of answer that the history of a country presents. Now and then indeed we may know tolerably well the story of some early Greek immigration, or we may possess full accounts of the modern settlement of a Pitcairn Island; but in far the greater number of instances we can but dimly surmise or rashly guess who and what were the earliest inhabitants of any given region.