396 Professor Pictet on the Insects found in Amber. 



which produced it. This forest probably flourished on a low- 

 island, which marine currents issuing from the north subse- 

 quently submerged and destroyed. 



The lignites where amber is found belong to the period of 

 the Prussian molasse, or the deposits of this epoch are im- 

 mediately above the saline formation of Galicia, and infe- 

 rior to the argillaceous schists, to the cerithean limestones 

 and arenaceous deposits which, in this country, compose a 

 series of tertiary stages. The forests, whose trunks have 

 furnished amber, have therefore lived during the earliest ages 

 of this period. It remains, at the same time, doubtful, whether 

 the commencement of the tertiary epoch in Germany corre- 

 sponds exactly to the time during which the eocene forma- 

 tions of Paris were formed. Ought the fragments of this sub- 

 stance, found in the coarse limestone of Passy, to be regarded 

 as demonstrating that they are contemporaneous \ New geo- 

 logical researches can alone teach us this. 



The animal and vegetable population of Prussia, during the 

 period when these forests flourished, is probably, then, con- 

 temporaneous with the tertiary pachyderms ; and the organic 

 remains inclosed in amber ought, consequently, to furnish 

 materials to complete the fauna and flora of this remarkable 

 epoch. "While this resin was still viscous and semifluid, it 

 has enveloped as it flowed fragments of vegetables ; and in- 

 sects, rashly lighting upon it, must often have been entrap- 

 ped. In many of them we notice positions indicating that they 

 have struggled, and vainly tried to escape. After assuming 

 a solid consistency, amber does not appear to have undergone 

 any important chemical modifications. It sometimes contains 

 small empty cells, which have been originally formed by drops 

 of water. 



The amber-producing forests were principally composed of 

 Coniferse, and more especially of numerous species of Pine, 

 The most common of these species, that consequently to which 

 we most probably ascribe the amber, has been named by M. 

 Goeppert Pinites succinifer. (I know not why this skilful bo- 

 tanist has not used the name Pinus, for the trees whose wood, 

 cones, and leaves, he describes, cannot, according to him, be 



