GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 295 



land, this stratified coating attains a thickness of one foot and contains 

 pehbles that are occasionally as large as a goose-egg! Above this 

 stratified layer nothing more is found, it is never covered over by new 

 accumulations of shells. It would seem then, that the age of the 

 Kjoekkenmoedding was ended by some catastrophe which violently 

 agitated the waters of the sea, and that the latter then rushed in at a 

 moderate height beyond its habitual boundary. 



It is just possible that this event might have occurred at any epoch 

 posterior to the age of the Kjoekkenmoedding. Nevertheless Mr. 

 Steenstrup is disposed to consider it as marking the very end of that 

 age. 



Flora o*the Kjoekkenmoedding. — Of the vegetable kingdom there 

 is left but few determinable remains. Charcoal and ashes are found in 

 abundance in them. • The charred vegetable matters have been gathered 

 together, in order to determine to what species they belong, but this 

 investigation is not yet concluded. 



It is worthy of notice . that there has been found in the Kjoekken- 

 moedding neither carbonized wheat nor a trace of any cereal whatsoever. 



There are observed sometimes, not so much in the mass itself of the 

 Kjoekkenmoedding , as in the soil adjoining them, deposits oftentimes 

 rather considerable of a dark and pulverulent matter, resulting 

 evidently from the carbonization of vegetable substances, which, how- 

 ever, were not wood, and which appear to have had their lye extracted. 

 Chemical analysis revealed the existence of a large proportion of 

 manganese in them, which, according to the researches of Mr. Forch- 

 hammer, is also found in pretty large quantities in the eel-gi^ass, 

 (Zostera marina, L.) Now, it is scarcely two hundred years since 

 the eel-grass was employed for making salt. This vegetable was 

 gathered into heaps, which were set on fire, the remains were then 

 sprinkled with sea-water, and on the surface were formed saline efflo- 

 rescences, which were collected. The product was a salt that was 

 tolerably good, and which people must have been very glad to obtain 

 when there was no other to be had. It seems, then, that the primitive 

 population of Denmark were in the habit of manufacturing salt by the 

 incineration of the eel-grass. 



Fauna of the Kjoekkenmoedding. — The four species of shells, of 

 which the greater part of the deposits in question are compounded, are : 



The Oyster, (Ostrea edulis, L.) 



The Cockle, (Cardium edide, L.) 



The Muscle, {Mytilus edulis, L.) 



The Littorine, (Littorina littorea, L.) 

 These four species, referred to here in the order of their frequency, 

 are all represented by specimens generally large and of vigorous 

 development. The oyster, which is the most abundant species in 

 the Kjoekkenmoedding , and which often composes them almost entirely, 

 has now disappeared from all the region situated farther in the interior 

 than the Kattegat, and more southerly than the northern shore-line 

 of Seeland. In the Kattegat itself we meet here and there with 

 isolated living oysters. But there is one point only, that between 

 the island of Laesse and the northern extremity of Jutland, where 



