The remains of lake-dwellings which I have hitherto described were,
with one or two exceptions, situated on the borders of large lakes,
and the industrial remains recovered from them were found more or
less buried in the lake sediment. But these are not the invariable
circumstances in which such antiquities are met with, as has already
been noticed in the case of Wauwyl; but their differentiating points I
did not then discuss, reserving them for this special occasion.
Every careful observer of natural phenomena must have noticed how,
under certain well-defined conditions, the superficial areas of lakes
are becoming gradually encroached upon, not only by the accumulation
of _débris_ carried into them by streams and rain-wash, but by the
growth of peat on their margins. This latter process occurs more
frequently in the smaller lakes--so much so that some of them have now
almost entirely disappeared owing to the complete filling up of their
basins. Though the growth of peat is slow, and almost imperceptible to
individual observers, whose lifetime is generally too short to mark
its progressive character, it has proved a most formidable antagonist
to lake settlements by destroying their lacustrine character, and thus
compelling their inhabitants to abandon them altogether. The peat
has, in some instances, actually engulfed entire villages, with the
accumulated _débris_ of their industrial equipments, thus hermetically
sealing up everything in one of the best antidotes to natural decay.
Cities and mighty empires have risen, flourished, and disappeared,
without transmitting to future ages a single record of their
existence, like flowers born to blush unseen. Such, indeed, might
have been the fate of many of these pile-villages, notwithstanding the
favourable conditions in which their ruins have been sealed up, had it
not been for the mere accident of peat cutting, which has disclosed
so many of their buried treasures. These remarks are peculiarly
applicable to the celebrated settlement at Robenhausen, with which I
begin to-day's lecture.