234 SHELL-MOUNDS IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 



by Dr. Stoliczka,* in Japan,f and in both North J and South 

 America. 



The fact that the majority of the Danish shell-mounds are 

 found at a height of only a few feet above the sea appears to 

 prove that there has been no considerable subsidence of the 

 land since their formation, while, on the other hand, it clearly 

 shows that there can have been no elevation. In certain 

 cases, however, where the shore is steep, they have been found 

 at a considerable height. It might indeed be supposed that 

 where, as at Bilidt, the materials of the Kjbkkenmodding were 

 rudely interstratified with sand and gravel, the land must have 

 sunk ; but if for any length of time such a deposit was sub- 

 jected to the action of the waves, all traces of it would be 

 obliterated, and it is, therefore, probable that an explanation 

 is rather to be found in the fact that the action of waves and 

 storms may have been greater at that time than it is now. 

 At present the tides only affect the Kattegat to the extent of 

 about a foot and a half, and the configuration of the land 

 protects it very much from the action of the winds. On the 

 other hand, the tides on the west coast of Jutland rise about 

 nine feet, and the winds have been known to produce differ- 

 ences of level amounting to twenty- nine feet ; and as we 

 know that Jutland was anciently an archipelago, and the 

 Baltic was more open to the German Ocean than it is now, 

 we can easily understand that the fluctuations of level may 

 have been greater, and we can thus explain how the waves 

 may have risen over the Kjokkemnodding at Bilidt (which is 

 after all not much more than ten feet above the water), with- 

 out resorting to the hypothesis of a subsidence and subsequent 

 elevation of the coast. 



* Proc. As. Soc. Bengal, Jan. Naturalist, vol. ii. Nos. 8, 9, and 



1870. 11. Foster, Pre-historic Kaces of 



t Morse, Mem. of Univ. of To- the United States, p. 156. 



kio, vol. i. Brett's Indian Tribes of Guiana. 



J H. "Wyman, The American Agassiz, Journej^ in Brazil. 



