86 Proceedings of the Boyal Physical Society. 
and faded until the soil got sick of them. Among these 
firs the first indication of humanity is to be met with in the 
shape of weapons and implements formed out of flint and 
the harder stones. Along with them there are remains of 
the capercailzie or cock-of-the-wood. Above this we have the 
third layer, which is composed of oaks ; and in it articles 
made of bronze first appear. When the oaks exhausted all 
the pabulum in the soil suited for their support, they seem 
to have given way to the beech forests, which are, at this 
date, one of the most striking features of Denmark. Among 
the beech, or in the highest layer of all, iron instruments 
occur. Thus, as Mr Lubbock writes, " while one race of 
men have exterminated another, and has in its turn been 
supplanted by a third, great changes in the vegetation have 
also taken place. It is manifestly impossible to affix a date 
in years to the formation of the Kjokken-Moddinger, which 
nevertheless are of immense antiquity. We have seen that 
at the time of the Komans the country was, as now, covered 
by beech forests, and yet we know that during the Bronze 
Age beeches were absent, or only represented by a few 
stragglers, while the whole country was covered by oaks. 
This change implies a great lapse of time, even if we sup- 
pose that but a few generations of oaks succeeded one 
another. We know also that oaks had been preceded by 
pines, and that the country was inhabited even then." 
On our own sandy shores and gravelly beeches of Elgin- 
shire, somewhat inland, and raised above the level of the 
highest tides, most people in their sea-side saunterings must 
have come upon masses of whitened and decayed shells, at 
times several yards in circumference, and some feet in depth. 
On passing these heaps, the reflection or remark may have 
arisen that the marine animals had been left to die there by 
the receding waters, or that, after the death of their inhabi- 
tants, the shells had been collected at some early period by 
an eddy of the ocean. Such oversight, or mistake, may 
possibly have been committed even by the scientific ob- 
server. It would be of importance, therefore, that, after 
the knowledge that has been got of these Kjokken-Mod- 
dinger, some of those localities around the British shores 
