58 SCANDINAVIA. 



severed from Germany, as much in their origin as in their warlike reminiscences. 

 Hence they reject all idea of political fusion with Germany, while equally jealous 

 of being confounded with tbeir Swedish and Norwegian neighbours. The 

 Scandinavian Union they aspire to is simply a confederacy of three nations, each 

 retaining its own laws and customs. 



Although Danish history, properly so called, scarcely dates from more than a 

 thousand years, the remains of every description strewn over the surface of 

 Jylland and neighbouring islands enable us to penetrate far beyond the historic 

 epoch, to times when the climatic conditions were far different from those now 

 prevailing. Denmark has acquired celebrity from the numerous evidences of 

 primitive culture found on her soil. What the Mediterranean seaboard had been 

 for the classical archœologist, the shores of the Kattegat and West Baltic have 

 become, though doubtless to a less degree, for the prehistoric student in general. 

 The remnants of our forefathers' rudimentary industries have here been collected 

 in countless thousands. 



Of all these natural museums, the most interesting are perhaps the peat beds, 

 where successive generations of forests have been carbonised. The alternatino: 

 layers of timber enable us approximately to determine the epochs when flourished 

 the animals whose remains are here preserved, and the men who have here left 

 their flint instruments. These peat bogs are at present overshadowed by forests 

 of beech ; but the forests that have been swallowed up are represented by the 

 three distinct vegetable strata of pine, oak, and aspen. The old flora at the 

 lowest depths consists of dwarf birch and other plants, now to be found 

 towards the south of Lapland. Hence at this epoch Denmark enjoyed a polar 

 climate ; yet man already lived here, for manufactured flints are found at the 

 lowest level associated with the bones of the reindeer and elk. But the 

 remainc of the mammoth and other large mammals are nowhere found in 

 Denmark, as in France and England, in places where man has left traces of his 

 industry. 



Of great archœologic importance are also the shell mounds occurring here and 

 there along the shores of Jylland and the Danish islands. They were formerly 

 supposed to be layers of débris thrown up by the waves ; but Worsaae and 

 Steenstrup have shown that they are really affahlsdj/nger or kJjekhenmœdcUngcr ; 

 that is, " kitchen refuse "or " kitchen middens." They are composed mainly of 

 the shells of oysters and other molluscs, as well as of fish bones, besides the gnawed 

 bones of deer, the roe, pigs, oxen, beavers, and dogs. The remains of cats 

 and otters have also been found, together with those of the great auk {AIca 

 impennis), which has disappeared during the present century from Iceland ; but 

 no trace of poultry has been detected. The only domestic animal at this time was 

 evidently the dog. 



Some of the mounds are 1,000 feet long, 100 to 200 broad, and 10 deep, thus 

 containing many tens of thousands of cubic yards of matter, and testifying either to 

 the multitude of those who took part in these entertainments, or to the long ages 

 during which they were continued. The people of this epoch were in the stone 



