180 Amber ; its Origin and History. [ April, 
south ; here they stranded upon the overflowed land, which was 
formed of Silurian and Cretaceous strata. ‘The latter, with its 
many soft and marly beds, offered the least resistance to the 
water and the ice, and was therefore the most deeply eroded and 
destroyed. The clayey material, being more easily suspended in the 
water, was carried away by the sea and deposited as mud. The harder 
portions were mixed with the crushed components of the northern 
rocks, and were also widely distributed as sand by the water and 
the ice. 
Without doubt there remained also at this period considerable 
deposits of Amber upon the Greensand beds of the Cretaceous 
formation, where the remains of the old forest soils existed, or the 
marshes and lakes which long ago had dried up or been filled with 
earth. With the soil, these also were now broken up, and with 
them the Amber was scattered in every direction. It can thus be 
explained why Amber-nests are found in the Diluvial deposits over 
all the German Plain, and why Amber also occurs in many other 
countries in Northern Europe, for instance, in Sweden, on the 
coast of the North Sea, &c. After the partial destruction of the 
Cretaceous beds, however, the Tertiary formation of Samland was 
laid bare to the fury of the waves and the pressure of the icebergs ; 
it was destroyed in many places, and at last overflowed and covered 
with mud and sand. 
The high coast of Samland presents an excellent opportunity 
for observing the nature and mode of the erosion of the Tertiary 
rocks by the Diluvial sea; and even the small coast-section (Fig. II.) 
enables us to perceive how here and there the upper beds only have 
been denuded, while at other places all the strata have been eroded 
down to the present sea-level, and even deeper. The narrow limits 
which have been assigned to this article, render it impossible for 
me to discuss very closely these relations, and I must therefore 
confine myself to the following remarks. 
Of the deposits which were thrown down by the Diluvial sea, 
two divisions, having clear boundary lines, are usually distinguished, 
namely, the Older Diluvium and the Newer. The Older Diluvium 
(Figs. IIT., IV., « to 3) is deposited on the Tertiary strata to the 
thickness of from 10 to 40 feet; but where the latter have been 
denuded down to the sea-level, it may be seen reaching a height of 
150 feet. Marl (which was deposited by the sea as mud), sand, 
large pebbles, and boulders are the principal components of the 
Older Diluvium. The sand, which has numerous varieties, distin- 
guishable partly by colour and partly by the size of the grains, is 
characterized throughout Samland by always being rich in Glau- 
conite, which was no doubt derived from the Greensand beds of the 
Cretaceous formation. The Newer Diluvium (Figs. III., IV., «) 
consists of yellow sand and yellow loam ; it is but slightly developed 
