With regard to the date when the immigration of lakemen began the savants are hopelessly at variance. Nor do they agree any better as to the dates of the stone and bronze epochs into which the history of the lake settlements divides itself. But as in some of the marshy stations these two epochs reach on to the age of iron, it is assumed by many authorities that the lake dwellers lived on to historical times. This is particularly shown in the alluvial soil and marshes between the lakes of Neuchâtel and Bienne, Préfargier being one of the chief stations, where settlements belonging to the stone, bronze, and iron ages are found ranged one above another in chronological order. In the topmost stratum or colony, the lakemen's wares are found mingling pell-mell with iron and bronze objects of Helvetian and Roman make, a fact sufficient, probably, to show that the lake dwellers associated with historical peoples. It would be useless as well as tedious to set forth at length all the theories prevailing as to the origin and age of the lake dwellings. Suffice it to say that, by some authorities, the commencement of the stone period is placed at six thousand, and by others at three thousand years before the Christian era, the latter being probably nearest the truth. As to the age of bronze, we may safely assign it to 1100-1000 B.C., for Professor Heer proves conclusively that the time of Homer--the Greek age of bronze--was contemporary with the bronze epoch of the lakemen.[5] The Lake period would seem to have drawn to a close about 600-700 B.C., when the age of bronze was superseded by that of iron. According to the most painstaking investigations made by Mr. Heierli, of Zurich, now the greatest authority on the subject in Switzerland, the lakemen left their watery settlements about the date just given, and began to fix their habitations on _terra firma_. Various tombs already found on land would bear witness to this change. When these peculiar people had once come on shore to live they would be gradually absorbed into neighbouring and succeeding races, no doubt into some of the Celtic tribes, and most likely into the Helvetian peoples. Thus they have their part, however small it may be, in the history of the Swiss nation. It must be added that the Pfahl-bauer are no longer held to have been a Celtic people, but are thought to have belonged to some previous race, though which has not as yet been ascertained. But enough has been written on the subject, perhaps. Yet, on the other hand, it would have been impossible to pass over the lakemen in silence, especially now when the important discoveries of similar lake settlements in East Yorkshire have drawn to the subject the attention of all intelligent English-speaking people.[6] FOOTNOTES: [2] There are two distinct kinds of settlement, but we are here dealing with the first or earlier kind. [3] Herod, v. 16.