The Kjolzken Moddinger" of Elginshire. 87 
were re-examined where " shelly deposits," " marine re- 
mains," or an " oyster," " cockle," or " mussel-bed," have 
been adduced as evidence of a raised sea margin, of the 
newer Pliocene, or of a still more recent deposit. Some of 
these may perchance now be detected and proved to be the 
artificial but interesting matters we are here discussing— 
the works of art, and not of nature. It is certain that some 
of these heaps within the Province of Moray have been re- 
garded as nothing else than the useless parts of his bait, 
which have been thrown down, as we now see, beside some 
fisherman's dwelling, where he and his family, at no very 
distant age, may have pursued the same line of life as his 
active descendants now follow in our thriving sea-side vil- 
lages. But no such origin for these mounds of shells, as 
these suppositions suggest, wdll now stand a closer examina- 
tion than the partial, transient glance given to them by the 
valetudinarian spending his holiday at Branderburgh, Cove- 
sea, Burghead, or Findhorn. They are henceforth to be 
looked upon as instructive objects for the archeeologist, 
whether visitor or resident ; and indeed they must become 
interesting to all who wish to know aught of the lives and 
habits of the early inhabitants, it may be of the aborigines 
of Moray. 
The singularly attractive discoveries which have been 
lately made in Denmark, and the publicity which the 
savans in that country have given to their discoveries, have 
been the means of drawing the attention of British ob- 
servers to this savoury subject ; wliile around the shores of 
the Moray Firth there are enough of materials to give it a 
local interest. But in thus associating Denmark with the 
shores of the Moray Firth, the times of the growth of these 
shell-heaps must not be assimilated with the invasions or 
settlements of Northmen in Scotland. Some, at least, of the 
Kjokken-Moddinger, now seen around the Moray Firth, 
were things of antiquity long before the prows of the Vikingr 
passed Kinnaird's Head, or ever Dane put ashore at Tordun, 
and changed the name of that ancient British stronghold 
into the Scandinavian one of Brough. There are proofs 
in the flint arrowheads, flakes, and knives, and in the stone 
