Dr. Thomas on the Amber Beds of East Prussia. 373 



was decidedly negatived, since all these remains, as well as the 

 great masses of coniferous wood, which are found near them in a 

 fossil state, when carefully heated, developed no odour of amber. 

 The circumstance that I found some fragments of wood which 

 exhibited this odour could not prevent the separation of that 

 flora from the amber, inasmuch as a notion has been developed 

 respecting the occurrence of the lignite and fossil wood which 

 accompany the amber, according to which remains of the true 

 amber-fir decidedly differing from those forms may occur casually 

 amongst them. In contradiction to the view which arose neces- 

 sarily from a strict examination of the coast of Samland, the pre- 

 sent occurrence of amber and lignite in geneml was referred to 

 those causes in consequence of which the land in which they lie 

 must be regarded as the alluvial product of some recent epoch 

 in the formation of the world. It was supposed, that before the 

 present epoch, at the period subsequent to the formation of chalk, 

 when the molosse* was precipitated, and contemporaneously with 

 it the Galician salt-beds were formed, an island to the north of 

 the present Samland, covered with amber-forests, was protruded 

 from the sea, and in the course of many myriads of years, under 

 the influence of very active vegetative powers, the immense masses 

 of amber were produced which for centuries have with equal 

 abundance afforded a never-failing mine. When this amber- 

 forest yielded to the catastrophe through which the figure of the 

 continents and the forms of the organisms of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdom originating on them were stamped with new 

 characters, the primary resting-place of the amber must have 

 been formed in and about that forest, and have been sunk with 

 it into the bed of the East Sea, yet not so deep that it could not 

 be exposed by subsequent catastrophes. If these consisted of 

 powerful waves, and by the help of partial elevations and depres- 

 sions different portions came successively into the sphere of ope- 

 ration, it could not fail that masses of amber would be washed 

 out of them and be imbedded again in secondary beds, in a way 

 which could be effected only by moving bodies of water. They 

 were either washed out on the neighbouring shores which were 

 undergoing great changes, and mixed with other rejectamenta of 

 the sea must have formed the veins of amber answering to what 

 are called the coast-seams (Kiistensaumer) and the nests of am- 

 ber corresponding with the casual hollows, or in consequence of 

 stronger currents have been strewed in seeming confusion at a 

 great distance from their birth-place, so that their principal de- 

 posits are arranged in lines, which, converging to one point, iur 

 dicate the position of the original amber-forest. 



* The exact equivalent of this term is doubtful. See Lyell, Geol. vol. iv. 

 p. 140. 



