rCfCIDENTAL EFFECTS OF HUM ATT ACTIOIST. 613 



primary or in more advanced stages of social life, must have occu- 

 pied particular districts for a longer period than has been sup- 

 posed by popular chronology. " On the coast of Jutland," says 

 Forchhammer, " wherever a bolt from a wreck or any other frag- 

 ment of iron is deposited in the beach sand, the particles are 

 cemented together, and form a very sohd mass around the iron. 

 A remarkable formation of this sort was observed a few years ago 

 in constructing the sea-wall of the harbor of Elsineur. This 

 stratum, which seldom exceeded a foot in thickness, rested 'upon 

 common beach sand, and was found at various depths, less near 

 the shore, greater at some distance from it. It was composed of 

 pebbles and sand, and contained a great quantity of pins, and some 

 coins of the reign of Christian lY., between the beginning and 

 the middle of the seventeenth century. Here and there a coating, 

 of metalhc copper had been deposited by galvanic action, and the 

 presence of completely oxidized metallic iron was often detected. 

 Investigation made it in the highest degree probable that this 

 formation owed its origin to the street sweepings of the town, 

 which had been thrown upon the beach, and carried off and dis- 

 tributed by the waves over the bottom of the harbor." * These 

 and other familiar observations of the like sort show that a sand- 

 stone reef, of no inconsiderable magnitude, might originate from 

 the stranding of a ship with a cargo of iron,f or from throwing 

 the waste of an estabhshment for working metals into running 

 water which might carry it to the sea. 



Parthey records a singular instance of unforeseen mischief from 

 an interference with the arrangements of nature. A land-owner at 

 Malta possessed a rocky plateau sloping gradually towards the sea, 

 and terminating in a precipice forty or fifty feet high, through 

 natural openings in which the sea-water flowed into a large cave 

 imder the rock. The proprietor attempted to establish salt-works 

 on the surface, and cut shallow pools in the rock for the evapora- 

 tion of the water. In order to fiU the salt-pans more readily, he 

 sank a well down to the cave beneath, through which he drew up 

 water by a windlass and buckets. The speculation proved a fait 



* OeognostiscTie Studien am Meerea Ufer, Leonhabd und Bronn, JaJirbuch. 

 1841, pp. 25, 26. 

 f KoHi,, Schleswig-Eolstein, ii., p. 45 



