Although classed in the lowest rank on account of the small extent of its territory and the number of its inhabitants, the Danish nation is, nevertheless, one of the most important in Europe, in virtue of the eminence to which it has attained in science and arts. This valiant, although numerically speaking, inconsiderable people, can boast of a great number of distinguished men who are an honour to science. The unwearied researches of their archæologists and antiquarians have ransacked the dust of bygone ages, in order to call into new life the features of a vanished world. Their labours, guided by the observations of naturalists, have brought out into the clear light of day some of the earliest stages in man's existence and progress. There is no part of the world more adapted than Denmark to this kind of investigation. Antiquities may be met with at every step; the real point in question is to know how to examine them properly, so as to obtain from them important revelations concerning the manners, customs, and manufactures of the pre-historic inhabitants. The Museum of Copenhagen, which contains antiquities from various Scandinavian states, is, in this respect, without a rival in the world. Among the objects arranged in this well-stocked Museum a great many specimens may be observed which have come from the so-called _kitchen-middens_. In the first place, what are these _kjoekken-moeddings_, or kitchen-middens, with their uncouth Scandinavian name? Immense accumulations of shells have been observed on different points of the Danish coast, chiefly in the north, where the sea enters those narrow deep creeks, known by the name of _fiords_. These deposits are not generally raised more than about 3 feet above the level of the sea; but in some steep places their altitude is greater. They are about 3 to 10 feet in thickness, and from 100 to 200 feet in width; their length is sometimes as much as 1000 feet, with a width of from 150 to 250 feet. On some of the more level shores they form perfect hills, on which, as at Havelse, windmills are sometimes built. What do we meet with in these heaps? An immense quantity of sea-shells, especially those of the oyster, broken bones of mammiferous animals, remains of birds and fish; and, lastly, some roughly-wrought flints.