of enormously increasing the lacustrine collections of Switzerland. In North Italy not only have new and remarkably interesting lacustrine stations been discovered and exhaustively investigated, as Lagozza and Polada, but the researches in the terremare have been such as to entirely alter the previous opinions held in regard to them. Nor has the progress in this field of research in many other countries in Europe been scarcely less important, in proof of which I have only to mention the additions made to the Scottish and Irish crannogs; the curious fascine structures brought to light in Holderness, Yorkshire; the novel revelations extracted from the terp mounds in Holland and other low-lying districts on the coast of the German Ocean; the greatly extended and more accurate details of lacustrine structures in North Germany; the discovery in Hungary of prehistoric mounds analogous to the terramara deposits of Italy, etc. In short there is hardly any corner of the lake-dwelling area in Europe which has not yielded new materials, throwing more or less light on this strange phase of prehistoric life.

In these circumstances I resolved to proceed de novo, and to construct my story of the lake-dwellings from whatever trustworthy sources I could lay my hands on. In order to carry out this intention my wife and I perambulated the whole of Central Europe with note and sketch books in hand, visiting, as far as practicable, the sites of lake-dwellings, and searching museums and libraries wherever we thought their relics or records were to be found. The eastern limit of the region thus visited may be represented by a line drawn from Königsberg to Trieste, passing through the intermediate towns of Krakow, Buda-Pesth, and Agram. The materials brought together from within this area are, to a very considerable extent, absolutely new to British archæologists. Of course, in a work which aims at putting into the hands of general readers an epitome of the essential facts and results of lacustrine researches since these singular remains were discovered in Europe, I had to take cognisance of some investigations that have already been fully recorded and illustrated. As it was impossible to illustrate typical groups of objects from all the lacustrine stations, I have, as a rule, in selecting the illustrations for this work, avoided those that have already come within the reach of English readers through the translation of Keller's works, except when they belonged to stations that are the best or only representatives of their kind in their respective localities—as, for example, the Rosen Insel in the Lake of Starnberg. Acting on this principle, I have given very few illustrations of objects from Nidau, Moosseedorf, St. Aubin, Wauwyl; nor, for the same reason, is a prominent place given to the earlier discoveries at Robenhausen, Estavayer, Concise, Cortaillod, etc. In this way I have endeavoured to combine in the work now issued as much novelty as possible, without detracting from its general and comprehensive scope.

As our peripatetic labours drew to a close, the next point to be considered was the method of grouping the materials under six divisions, corresponding with the prescribed number of lectures. This was by no means an easy task, as neither the geographical distribution, nor the historical order of the discoveries, could be exclusively selected as a cementing element in dealing with remains so diversified in character and of so wide a range in space and time. The plan which I have here adopted seems to me to combine the greatest advantages with the fewest drawbacks. Its rationale is as follows:—After introducing my subject by a short account of the circumstances that led to the discovery of the Pfahlbauten in the Lake of Zürich, and glancing at the archæological importance and surprising results of this discovery in other Swiss lakes, the historical element is dropped,