GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 317 



IV. PHYSICAL CHANGES. 



The animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom are not the only 

 ones that have had their vicissitudes. Physical nature has also un- 

 dergone sensible changes in the north. 



Eenmark. — We have seen that the geographical distribution of the 

 Kjoekkenmoedding indicated an encroachment of the sea upon a large 

 portion of the exterior shores, which have been eaten away and grad- 

 ually swallowed up. This action appears to have been quite consid- 

 erable in certain districts. We have seen that, on other points the 

 Kjoekkenmoedding indicate an invasion of the domain of the waters by 

 the dry land, either by embankments, beaches, or alluviums in gen- 

 eral, or again by the encroachments of bog. These latter have been very 

 considerable, both in the domain of the Iresh waters and in that of the 

 salt water, in the fjords, arms of the sea, and other low grounds of 

 that kind. 



It has thus been recognized that Jutland had been anciently trav- 

 ersed from end to end by many fjords and arms of the sea, which then 

 made this region an archipelago, composed of numerous islands in- 

 dependent of each other. Nowadays there is only the Liimfjord, 

 which traverses the country from the Kattegat to the North Sea, and 

 even its mouth into the latter, the canal of Agger, is very narrow and 

 shallow, allowing only small craft to enter; it even threatened to close 

 up entirely in the spring of 1859. 



Seeland also was cut up by fjords and arms of the sea. Thus, in 

 the middle ages, they sailed up to Slangerup, which was then a sea- 

 port. Now the arm of the sea is supplanted by a brook, running from 

 Slangerup, along a distance of seven kilometers (four statute miles) 

 before it enters the Isefjord, near Frederiksund. 



Tradition relates that a naval combat took place on the spot now 

 occupied by Lake Tiis, in Seeland. Tlie fleets must have come from the 

 north and from the southwest, for this spot must then have formed 

 part of a fjord that traversed from end to end the western region of 

 Seeland. Nowadays Lake Tiis communicates with the sea merely by 

 means of a brook. In this case, as in that of Slangerup, it is the 

 peat-bogs that have brought about the change. 



The great swamp called Lille Vildmose, situated at the eastern 

 mouth of the Lumtjord, on the southern shore, has given occasion to a 

 curious observation, recorded in the memoir already alluded to of Mr. 

 Steenstrup on the peat-bogs. Its area must have formed anciently a 

 marine flat, for dead oysters are found on it in situ. Later this flat 

 was separated from the sea by a shore line which the latter threw up ; 

 this held back the out-flow of the waters and formed a lagune, where 

 the peat gained ground so last that the whole ended by being con- 

 verted into a vast boggy, fresh-wafer marsh. In 1760 they bored 

 through the shore line to enable the waters to escape, and thus to 

 regain their former level. The area of a number of small lakes was 

 thus drained dry, and it was found that these latter represented so 

 many little ancient islands, on which the peat had not been able to 

 get a footing, and which were now bounded all around their contour, 



