For the third calculation, communicated to me by M. Morlot, we are indebted to M. Victor Gillieron, of Neuveville, on the Lake of Bienne. It relates to the age of a pile-dwelling, the mammalian bones of which are considered by M. Rutimeyer to indicate the earliest portion of the stone period of Switzerland, and to correspond in age with the settlement of Moosseedorf.
The piles in question occur at the Pont de Thiele, between the lakes of Bienne and Neufchatel. The old convent of St. Jean, founded 750 years ago, and built originally on the margin of the Lake of Bienne, is now at a considerable distance from the shore, and affords a measure of the rate of the gain of land in seven centuries and a half. Assuming that a similar rate of the conversion of water into marshy land prevailed antecedently, we should require an addition of sixty centuries for the growth of the morass intervening between the convent and the aquatic dwelling of Pont de Thiele, in all 6750 years. M. Morlot, after examining the ground, thinks it highly probable that the shape of the bottom on which the morass rests is uniform; but this important point has not yet been tested by boring. The result, if confirmed, would agree exceedingly well with the chronological computation before mentioned of the age of the stone period of Tiniere. As I have not myself visited Switzerland since these chronological speculations were first hazarded, I am unable to enter critically into a discussion of the objections which have been raised to the two first of them, or to decide on the merits of the explanations offered in reply.
IRISH LAKE-DWELLINGS OR CRANNOGES.
The lake-dwellings of the British isles, although not explored as yet with scientific zeal, as those of Switzerland have been in the last ten years, are yet known to be very numerous, and when carefully examined will not fail to throw great light on the history of the bronze and stone periods.
In the lakes of Ireland alone, no less than forty-six examples of artificial islands, called crannoges, have been discovered. They occur in Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Down, Monaghan, Limerick, Meath, King's County, and Tyrone.*
(* W.M. Wylie "Archaeologia" volume 38 1859 page 8.)
One class of these "stockaded islands," as they have been sometimes called, was formed, according to Mr. Digby Wyatt, by placing horizontal oak beams at the bottom of the lake, into which oak posts, from 6 to 8 feet high, were mortised, and held together by cross beams, till a circular enclosure was obtained.
A space of 520 feet diameter, thus enclosed at Lagore, was divided into sundry timbered compartments, which were found filled up with mud or earth, from which were taken "vast quantities of the bones of oxen, swine, deer, goats, sheep, dogs, foxes, horses, and asses." All these were discovered beneath 16 feet of bog, and were used for manure; but specimens of them are said to be preserved in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy. From the same spot were obtained a great collection of antiquities, which, according to Lord Talbot de Malahide and Mr. Wylie, were referable to the ages of stone, bronze, and iron.*
(* W.M. Wylie "Archaeologia" volume 38 1859 page 8, who
cites "Archaeological Journal" volume 6 page 101.)
In Ardekillin Lake, in Roscommon, an islet of an oval form was observed, made of a layer of stones resting on logs of timber. Round this artificial islet or crannoge thus formed was a stone wall raised on oak piles. A careful description has been put on record by Captain Mudge, R.N., of a curious log-cabin discovered by him in 1833 in Drumkellin bog, in Donegal, at a depth of 14 feet from the surface. It was 12 feet square and 9 feet high, being divided into two stories each 4 feet high. The planking was of oak split with wedges of stone, one of which was found in the building. The roof was flat. A staked enclosure had been raised round the cabin, and remains of other similar huts adjoining were seen but not explored. A stone celt, found in the interior of the hut, and a piece of leather sandal, also an arrow-head of flint, and in the bog close at hand a wooden sword, give evidence of the remote antiquity of this building, which may be taken as a type of the early dwellings on the Crannoge islands.