cHap. xvu.] Kitchen-midden at Boyndie. 309 
British coast. We do not know whether the first investi- 
gations were made along the shores of the Moray Firth, but 
they are the first of which we have any account. Numer- 
ous shell-heaps had long been observed along the coast. 
They were raised above the level of the highest tides; and 
the impression which prevailed was, that they had been 
collected there at some early period by an eddy of the 
ocean. The shelly deposits were also adduced in proof of 
a raised sea-margin. 
The kitchen-midden at Boyndie, near Banff, had long 
been known as a famous place for shell. Hence, probably, 
its name of Shelly-bush. About forty years since, Edward’s 
attention was drawn to it by a man who had picked up 
shells from it when a boy. Edward set it down in his 
mind as an old sea-margin, and although often passing it in 
his journeys by the sea-side, he never thought of it as any 
thing else. When Professor Macgillivray, of Aberdeen, was 
walking with Edward along the links, about the year 1850, 
the latter pointed out to him the shell-bank. The professor 
remarked that it did not look like any other raised beach 
that he had ever seen. 
Years passed; but what with cart-wheels going over it, 
and rude hands picking at it, the shells and bones which it 
contained at length became more clearly exposed. Still it 
was held to be but an ancient sea-beach. Then came the 
news from Denmark about the kitchen-middens. A paper 
by Mr. (now Sir John) Lubbock appeared in the Watu- 
ral History Review for October, 1861, which had the effect 
of directing the attention of archeologists to the subject. 
“Macgillivray’s remark,” says Edward, “instantly flashed 
upon me. JI looked at the Shelly-bush shells in our col- 
lection, and compared them with the raised beaches of King 
Edward and Gamrie. I saw the difference in a moment, 
and smiled at my own stupidity. Away I went to the 
Bush, and the happy result was, that before I returned I 
had the inexpressible delight of ascertaining that the old 
