here indicated. "In all
probability the stones used were conveyed to the required spot by means
of canoes, made of hollowed out trunks of trees. Several of these canoes
may still be seen at the bottom of Lake Bienne, and one, indeed, laden
with pebbles, which leads us to think it must have foundered with its
cargo."<10>

Illustration of Foundation, Lake Village.------------

In some cases these heaps of stone and sticks rise to the surface of the
water or even above it, the piles in such cases serving more to hold the
mass together than as a support to the platform on which the huts were
erected. This mode of construction could only be employed in small
lakes. This makes in reality an artificial island, and seems to have
been the favorite method of procedure in the British Islands. In Ireland
and Scotland immense numbers of these structures are known. They are
called crannogs. This cut represents a section of one in Ireland. Though
they date back to the Neolithic Age, yet they so exactly meet the wants
of a rude people that they were occupied down to historic times.

Illustration of Irish Crannog.---------------

The advantage of forming settlements where they could only be approached
on one side were so great that other places than lakes were resorted
to. Peat-bogs furnished nearly as secure a place of retreat as do lakes.
These have been well studied in Northern Italy. They do not present many
new features. They were constructed like the lake villages, only they
were surrounded by a marsh, and not by a lake. In some of the Irish bogs
they first covered the surface of the bog with a layer of hazel bushes,
and that by a layer of sand, and thus secured a firm surface.<11> In
this case the villages were still further defended by a breastwork of
rough spars, about five feet high. One of the houses of this group was
found still in position, though it had been completely buried in peat.
No metal had been used in its construction. The timbers had been cut
with a stone ax, and the explorer was even so fortunate as to find an
ax, which exactly fitted many of the cuts observed on the timbers.

But we are not to suppose that lakes and bogs afforded the only sites of
villages. They are found scattered all over the surface of the country,
and, as we shall soon see, they show the same painstaking care to secure
strong, easily defended positions. They have been generally spoken of
as forts, to which the inhabitants resor