1868. ] Amber ; tts Origin and History. 171 
tinguished by its very coarse quartz grains. Above them lies a bed 
of “ Green Sand ” (c), then follows a bed composed of a very fine 
micaceous sand, from 10 to 25 feet thick, containing quite as small 
granules of glauconite, and much clay, being near the latter rich in 
sulphate of iron. This bed bears amongst the Amber-diggers the 
name of the “ White Wall” (d), because when it is dry it soon 
becomes covered with a sheet of sulphate of iron. Upon it, finally, 
there reposes (still in the southern part) a bed of coarse quartz 
sand, 3 feet thick, which is particularly rich in large granules of 
Glauconite (e). Of all these beds only the upper “ Amber-earth” 
and the “Green Sand” can be compared with the corresponding 
beds of the northern deposit, the remainder being peculiar to this 
southern formation. The latter is also further distinguished by 
containing no fossils with the exception of shark’s teeth, which occur 
everywhere in the “Amber-earth,” and by the greater abundance 
of pieces of Amber in the beds overlying the Amber-earth, namely, 
in the so-called “ White Wall,” than in the “Green Sand” of the 
northern deposit. We have evidently here, therefore, the northern 
margin of a deposit, which filled up a basin of its own,—immediately 
connected, it is true, with the great sea-~bed in which the northern 
deposit was accumulated,—but which was formed by the action of 
particular currents. All this is clearly and sufficiently explained if 
we assume that these southern deposits have been formed at the 
mouth of a stream. ‘The following observations will confirm this 
hypothesis. 
In order to advance the solution of the various disputed ques- 
tions relating to the birth-place of Amber, I directed my attention 
particularly to those minerals which are found in the beds of the 
“Glauconitic Sand” in the form of pebbles; and it has been my 
good fortune to obtain such a series of these pebbles as throws: con- 
siderable light on the problems in question. In the “‘ Amber-earth” 
of the northern deposit are found somewhat abundantly pieces of a 
compact stone, from the size of a hazel-nut to that of a walnut, 
which is evidently the parent-rock of the “Green Sand,” as it is 
composed of exactly similar granules of Quartz and Glauconite bound 
together by a marly cement. These fragments, however, vary 
amongst themselves, in the quartz grains being sometimes larger 
and at others smaller, and the cementing marl being sometimes 
more and sometimes less abundant. With them also are associated 
small portions of marl which contain only granules of Glauconit:. 
In the “ Amber-earth ” of the southern deposit, however, occur 
fragments of that Cretaceous rock which is so abundant as pebbles 
in the Diluvial deposits of Northern Germany, and which is known 
sometimes as hard chalk, or as chalk-marl, or again as earthy 
(“todter”) limestone. It is characterized by its richness in such 
fossils as Belemnitella mucronata (Schl.) d’Orb., Ostrea vesicularis, 
VOL. V. fe) 
