"The bottom of the sepulchral chamber of a _dolmen_ is generally covered with a layer of flints which have been subjected to fire; this is the floor on which the body was deposited; it was then covered with a thin coating of earth, and the tomb was closed. Yet, as we have just observed, it was but very rarely that _dolmens_ contained only one skeleton. They must, therefore, have been opened afresh in order to deposit other bodies. It must have been on these occasions, in order to contend with the miasma of putrefaction, that they lighted the fires, of which numerous and evident traces are seen inside the _dolmens_. This course of action continued, as it appears, until the time when the _dolmen_ was entirely filled up: but even then, the tomb does not, in every case, seem to have been abandoned. Sometimes the most ancient skeletons have been displaced to make room for fresh bodies. This had taken place in a _dolmen_ near Copenhagen, which was opened and searched in the presence of the late King Frederick VII. "A _dolmen_ situated near the village of Hammer, opened a few years ago by M. Boye, presented some very curious peculiarities. In addition to flint instruments, human bones were discovered, which had also been subjected to the action of fire. We are, therefore, led to suppose, that a funeral banquet had taken place in the vicinity of the tomb, and that some joints of human flesh had formed an addition to the roasted stag. This is, however, the only discovery of the kind which has been made up to the present time, and we should by no means be justified in drawing the inference that the inhabitants of Denmark at this epoch were addicted to cannibalism. "The dead bodies were deposited along with their weapons and implements, and also with certain vessels which must have contained the food which perhaps some religious usage induced them to leave close to the body. For a long time it was supposed that it was the custom to place these weapons by the side of _men_ only. But in a _dolmen_ at Gieruen, a hatchet was found near a skeleton which was evidently that of a woman. "We now give the inventory of a 'find' made in a Danish _dolmen_, that of Hielm, in the Isle of Moen, which was opened in 1853. The sepulchral chamber was 16-1/2 feet in length, 11-1/2 feet in width, and 4-1/2 feet in height. "In it were discovered twenty-two spear-heads, the largest of which was 11 inches in length, and the smallest 5-1/2 inches; more than forty flint flakes or knives from 2 to 5 inches in length; three flat hatchets, and one rather thicker; three carpenter's chisels, the longest of which measured 8 inches; a finely-made hammer 5 inches long; three flint nuclei exactly similar to those found in the kitchen-middens; and lastly, in addition to all these flint articles, some amber beads and forty earthen vessels moulded by the hand."[28]