. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. wi;li a stem or foot, but too slender to support them in an upright position. The measurement in some cases amounts to 40 centimetres. Most of them are of argillaceous earth mixed with quartzose grains and small pebbles, like the rings for supportino- fMt tl'G vases, but still ornamented with designs very ''T^ rude, and only on one side. They were, at all events, objects of little value either for composi- tion or form ; and since it is imp
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. wi;li a stem or foot, but too slender to support them in an upright position. The measurement in some cases amounts to 40 centimetres. Most of them are of argillaceous earth mixed with quartzose grains and small pebbles, like the rings for supportino- fMt tl'G vases, but still ornamented with designs very ''T^ rude, and only on one side. They were, at all events, objects of little value either for composi- tion or form ; and since it is impossible to assign to them any use, it has been asked whether they might not represent a species of talisman or relig- ious symbol which was suspended within or per- haps at the doors of dwellings, which would ex- .,. _. plain why they are pierced with a hole intended ^^^^^^ ' evidently for the passage of a strap. The first lacustrian cres- cents were discovered by M. Schwab at the station of Ni- dau ; but as this station com- prises the relics of the three ages, while the true palafittes of the age of bronze had fur- nished nothing of the kind, M. Troy on [Habit, lacustres, page ;)) concluded that they must have appertained to the first age of iron rather than to that of bronze. Since that time we have ascertain- ed their presence in the two palafittes of Cortaillod and Auvernier; there is no doubt, therefore, that they ascend to the age of bronze. They have been found also at Ebersberg, in the canton of Zurich, though here, instead of being of baked earth, as with us, they are occasionally of stone. Such, among others, is the fine specimen which we borrow from the work of M. Keller, and which our learned friend has adopted as the frontispiece of his third report.* It is of reddish sandstone (Fig. 67.) M. Quiquerez announces a fragment of one in stone among the diibri's of Vorbourg, near Felemont. Commercial relations.—If commerce there was none, or one very much ro-
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