there were few if any bones of other domestic animals, the
remains of dogs were found; everything showed that there had been a
progress in civilization between the former Stone epoch and this.

The second series of discoveries in Scandinavia was made in the
peat-beds: these were generally formed in hollows or bowls varying in
depth from ten to thirty feet, and a section of them, like a section of
the deposits in the bone caverns, showed a gradual evolution of human
culture. The lower strata in these great bowls were found to be made up
chiefly of mosses and various plants matted together with the trunks
of fallen trees, sometimes of very large diameter; and the botanical
examination of the lowest layer of these trees and plants in the various
bowls revealed a most important fact: for this layer, the first in point
of time, was always of the Scotch fir--which now grows nowhere in the
Danish islands, and can not be made to grow anywhere in them--and of
plants which are now extinct in these regions, but have retreated within
the arctic circle. Coming up from the bottom of these great bowls there
was found above the first layer a second, in which were matted together
masses of oak trees of different varieties; these, too, were relics of
a bygone epoch, since the oak has almost entirely disappeared from
Denmark. Above these came a third stratum made up of fallen beech trees;
and the beech is now, and has been since the beginning of recorded
history, the most common tree of the Danish Peninsula.

Now came a second fact of the utmost importance as connected with the
first. Scattered, as a rule, through the lower of these deposits, that
of the extinct fir trees and plants, were found implements and weapons
of smooth stone; in the layer of oak trees were found implements of
bronze; and among the layer of beeches were found implements and weapons
of iron.

The general result of these investigations in these two sources, the
shell mounds and the peat deposits, was the same: the first civilization
evidenced in them was marked by the use of stone implements more or less
smooth, showing a progress from the earlier rude Stone period made known
by the bone caves; then came a later progress to a higher civilization,
marked by the use of bronze implements; and, finally, a still higher
development when iron began to be used.

The labours of the Danish archaeologists have resulted in the formation
of a great museum at Copenhagen, and on