were covered, as now, with magnificent beech forests. Nowhere in
the world does this tree flourish more luxuriantly than in Denmark,
and eighteen centuries seem to have done little or nothing towards
modifying the character of the forest vegetation. Yet in the
antecedent bronze period there were no beech trees, or at most but
a few stragglers, the country being then covered with oak. In the
age of stone again, the Scotch fir prevailed, and already there
were human inhabitants in those old pine forests. How many
generations of each species of tree flourished in succession before
the pine was supplanted by the oak, and the oak by the beech, can
be but vaguely conjectured, but the minimum of time required for
the formation of so much peat must, according to the estimate of
Steenstrup and other good authorities, have amounted to at least
4000 years; and there is nothing in the observed rate of the growth
of peat opposed to the conclusion that the number of centuries may
not have been four times as great, even though the signs of Man's
existence have not yet been traced down to the lowest or amorphous
stratum. As to the "kitchen-middens," they correspond in date to
the older portion of the peaty record, or to the earliest part of
the age of stone as known in Denmark.

ANCIENT SWISS LAKE-DWELLINGS, BUILT ON PILES.

In the shallow parts of many Swiss lakes, where there is a depth of
no more than from 5 to 15 feet of water, ancient wooden piles are
observed at the bottom sometimes worn down to the surface of the
mud, sometimes projecting slightly above it. These have evidently
once supported villages, nearly all of them of unknown date, but
the most ancient of which certainly belonged to the age of stone,
for hundreds of implements resembling those of the Danish