GRAVES OF THE STONE-PERIOD, OR CROMLECHS, (STEENDYSSER.)
The important and highly ancient memorials which are usually termed Cromlechs in England, Steingräber in Germany, and often Urgräber, (ancient graves, or Hünengräber, giants' graves,) are slightly elevated mounds surrounded by a number of upright stones, on the top of which are erected chambers formed of large stones placed one upon the other. Although many of them have been removed or destroyed for the sake of the stones, they still exist in Denmark in very considerable numbers. They are most frequently met with on the coast, particularly on the north and west coast of Seeland, on the coasts of Fühnen, in the north of Jütland at the Lümfiord, particularly in the domain of Thisled, as well as along the east coasts of Jütland, Sleswig, and Holstein. They occur more rarely on the west coasts, and still more seldom in the interior of the country. They may be divided into two chief kinds; 1st the long, and 2nd the small round Cromlechs, (Langdysser og Runddysser.) The term Cromlech is here applied not only to the stone chamber, but to the whole monument. As the long cromlechs (one of which we here figure as it is seen sideways) exist in great quantities in various districts of the country, their size is naturally very different. For the most part they are from sixty to a hundred and twenty feet in length, occasionally somewhat smaller, but there are instances of their being two hundred, and in some few cases four hundred feet in length. Their breadth on the other hand is very inconsiderable, at most they are only from sixteen to twenty-four, and the very longest of all thirty to forty feet.
No general rule can be stated as to the direction in which they lie. They are most frequently met with from east to west, they
