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. LAKE OF PFÄFFIKON. The small lake of Pfäffikon, which lies to the east of Lake Zürich, contained two settlements, viz. Robenhausen and Irgenhausen.