401 ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 



Under these circumstances a committee was formed, consisting 

 of Professor Steer) strap, the celebrated author of the treatise " On 

 the Alternation of Grenerations," Professor Forchhammer, the father 

 of Danish Geology, and Professor Worsaae, the great Archaeologist : 

 a happy combination, and one which promised the best results to 

 Biology, Greology, and Archaeology. 



Much was naturally expected from the labours of such a trium- 

 virate, but the most sanguine hopes have been fulfilled. Already 

 several of the deposits have been carefully examined, and many thou- 

 sand specimens have been collected, ticketed, and deposited in the 

 Museum at Copenhagen. Both in themselves and in their rela- 

 tions to the discoveries made by M. Boucher de Perthes in the Valley 

 of the Somme, these researches are of the greatest interest, and the 

 results have been embodied in six Reports presented to the Academy 

 of Sciences at Copenhagen.* 



These reports, however, being in Danish have not received the at- 

 tention they deserve, but M. Morlotf has published a very excellent 

 abstract of them, to which I would refer all those who take an 

 interest in the subject, and from which I have extracted many of 

 the following details. Having had the advantage of visiting the pits 

 at Amiens and Abbeville with Mr. Busk, Capt. Gralton, and Mr. 

 Prestwich, and of inspecting the admirable collection belonging to M. 

 Boucher de Perthes, I was naturally very desirous of having an oppor- 

 tunity of comparing the flint instruments found in Prance with those 

 which occur in Denmark, and I was so fortunate as to induce Mr. 

 Busk to go with me to Copenhagen, he being specially anxious to 

 study the collection of ancient crania, while my attention was more 

 particularly directed to the contents of the Kjokkenmoddings. 

 During the whole of our visit Prof. Worsaae was absent from the 

 capital, and Prof. Porchhammer was also away for a great part of the 

 time ; Professors Thomsen and Steenstrup however were most oblig- 

 ing, and the latter at much personal inconvenience made an excursion 

 into the country to show us the Kjokkenmodding, at Havelse, on 

 the Isefjord, which is one of the most characteristic specimens of 

 these ancient dust-heaps. We had already visited one at Bilidt, 

 close to Predericksund, but this is one of the places at which it would 

 seem that the inhabitants cooked their dinners actually on the shore 

 itself, so that the shells and bones are much mixed up with sand and 

 gravel. At Havelse, on the contrary, the settlement was rather 

 higher up, and the shells and bones are therefore unmixed with any 

 extraneous substances. We started from Copenhagen soon after six, 

 going to Boeskilde by rail, and then took the steamer down the Ise- 

 fjord to Predericksund, from which we drove to Havelse. At this 

 place the Kjokkenmodding is of small extent, and appears to have 



* Untersogelser i geologisk-antiquarisk Retiring af G. Forchhammer, J, Steen- 

 strup, og J. Worsaae. 



f Etudes Geologico-Archeologiques en Danemark et en Suisse. Mem. de la 

 Societe Vaudoise, T.vi. 1860. 





