Dr. Thomas on the Amber Beds of East Prussia. 375 



which many thousands of years since may have stretched north- 

 ward into the East Sea. 



I am speaking indeed of the small tract only of the Samlandic 

 coast of the East Sea^ with which I believe that I am sufficiently 

 well acquainted to venture to make the assertion, that there can 

 be no question as regards it of any remarkable diluvial deposit, 

 or more recent alluvial formation. In many places, as for 

 instance near Rauschen, this coat of tertiary soil is altogether 

 wanting, and the winds sport with a snow-white sand which 

 streams forth from the apertures of a thin clay, which is fre- 

 quently black with fragments of lignite. 



The masses, which rise to the height of a hundred feet or 

 more out of the sea, are no diluvial refuse whose component parts 

 are only accidentally thrown together ; they are no remains of 

 the coast of a constantly retreating sea, but a peculiar formation 

 of a former epoch of the earth, driven from its original position 

 by circumstances which have nothing to do with the phsenomena 

 of the deluge, owing rather their present state to a partial and 

 probably not very remarkable upheaving of the soil. 



If we follow the seemingly horizontal strata of sand and coal- 

 bearing clay, which reach from Lapohn to Warnik, and which 

 are clearly an alluvial product belonging to that formation, we 

 find between Warnik and Grosskuhren a peculiar sand-forma- 

 tion rising from the surface of the sea, and inclining at an angle 

 of about 15 degrees to the west. It is formed of distinct parallel 

 layers whose limits are defined by strong deposits of red ochre. 

 These beds are frequently cut through in a vertical direction by 

 tubular bodies, which remind one forcibly of the stems of Encri- 

 nites. Cup-shaped and reniform concretions of clay, red ochre 

 and flint follow the parallel divisions, and in these and near them 

 are found numerous marine fossil remains, which in part by 

 their position indicate those beds as their original place of abode, 

 and as the former bed of the sea. The frequently beautifully 

 preserved shells of these beings, which are sometimes changed 

 into tender ochre, sometimes into silicate of iron as hard as 

 steel, have in their mineralogical structure no resemblance either 

 to the petrifactions which belong to the limestone of the Jura, 

 and which are not quite unknown to these districts, nor to 

 those of the chalk, which, though especially existent here, are but 

 rarely met with. The marine remains belonging peculiarly to 

 the amber-formation are Ostracites, Echinites, Spatangi and other 

 productions, whose forms seem to have been sufficiently pre- 

 served to facilitate a closer distinction of the species, and hence 

 to determine the position of the amber-formation in the geolo- 

 gical members of the Carpathian plain. But this member of that 

 chain seems to have pretensions to the name of amber-formation, 



