DOMAIN VI. CARBONACEOUS. 



for many leagues, and is covered with a bed of 

 pebbles from 12 to 20 feet in thickness, while the 

 lignite itself exceeds 50 feet*. Our ingenious 

 observer says that the trunks of trees, which 

 are often found, are always deprived of their 

 branches; whence he argues, that they have 

 been conveyed by the ocean. Besides the nuts, 

 which now belong to Hindostan, the Moluccas, 

 and China, masses of a kind of gum or frankin- 

 cense are found, which when burnt perfume the 

 huts of the peasants f . 



Masses of a similar kind have been foand in 

 many quarters of the department of the Aisne ; 

 one of the most remarkable being that near 

 Beaurieux, where a pit sunk to the depth of 65 

 feet, ended in a subterranean marsh, full of sand 

 and water, which soon filled the pit J. In that 

 of Villers- en- Prayer, at the depth of 17 or 18 



* i. 410. 



f There is in Prussia a mine of amber, 98 feet deep, and the am- 

 ber is found between two salbands of lignite, and sometimes adhe- 

 rent. Jour, de Phys. tome xxxix, p. 365. At Vorospatac, in 

 Transylvania, a lignite is found with leaves of gold. Journ. dos 

 Mines, No. 23, p. 83. 



J In Mount Meisner, Hessia, there is a very thick bed of fossil 

 turf, with trunks, branches, and roots of trees, reposing on lime- 

 stone, and covered with basalt. De Luc, Geol. 339, thinks that 

 such hills had sunk under water, and were again elevated. At 

 Schemnitz there is a vein of lignite at the depth of 360 yards. Journ. 

 <les Mines, iv. 807. 



