But this rule was to be much further exemplified. About 1850,
while the French and English geologists were working more
especially among the relics of the drift and cave periods, noted
archaeologists of the North--Forchammer, Steenstrup, and
Worsaae--were devoting themselves to the investigation of
certain remains upon the Danish Peninsula. These remains were of
two kinds: first, there were vast shell-heaps or accumulations
of shells and other refuse cast aside by rude tribes which at
some unknown age in the past lived on the shores of the Baltic,
principally on shellfish. That these shell-heaps were very
ancient was evident: the shells of oysters and the like found in
them were far larger than any now found on those coasts; their
size, so far from being like that of the corresponding varieties
which now exist in the brackish waters of the Baltic, was in
every case like that of those varieties which only thrive in the
waters of the open salt sea. Here was a clear indication that at
the time when man formed these shell-heaps those coasts were in
far more direct communication with the salt sea than at present,
and that sufficient time must have elapsed since that period to have
wrought enormous changes in sea and land throughout those regions.
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