PALAEONTOLOGY. 287 



ize and great nge. In the trunk of a tree found at Bonn, 

 Noggeratn counted 792 annual rings.* In the north of France, 

 at Yseux, near Abbeville, oaks have been discovered in the 

 turf moors of the Somme, which measured fourteen feet in 

 diameter, a thickness which is very remarkable in the old 

 continent and without the tropics. According to Goppert's 

 excellent investigations, which, it is hoped, may soon be 

 illustrated by plates, it would appear that " all the amber of 

 the Baltic comes from a coniferous tree, which, to judge by 

 the still extant remains of the wood and the bark at different 

 ages, approaches very nearly to our white and red pines, 

 although forming a distinct species. The amber tree of the 

 ancient world (Pinites succifer}, abounded in resin to a 

 degree far surpassing that manifested by any extant coniferous 

 tree, for not only were large masses of amber deposited in 

 and upon the bark but also in the wood itself, following the 

 course of the medullary rays, which together with ligneous 

 cells are still discernible under the microscope, and peripherally 

 between the rings, being sometimes both yellow and white." 

 " Among the vegetable forms inclosed in amber are male and 

 female blossoms of our native acicular-leaved trees and 

 cupulifeiTe, whilst fragments which are recognised as belong- 

 ing to thuia, c-upressus, ephedera. and castania vesca, blended 

 with those of junipers and firs, indicate a vegetation different 

 from that of the coasts and plains of the Baltic. "f 



* Buckland, Geology, p. 509. 



+ [The forests of amber-pines, Pinites succifer, were in the south- 

 eastern part of what is now the bed of the Baltic, in about 55 N. lat., 

 and 37 E. long. The different colours of amber are derived from local 

 chemical admixture. The amber contains fragments of vegetable 

 matter, and from these it has been ascertained that the amber-pine 

 forests contained four other species of pine (besides the Pinites succi- 

 fer), several cypresses, yews, and junipers, with oaks, poplars, beeches, 

 c. altogether forty-eight species of trees and shrubs, constituting a 

 dora of North American character. There are also some ferns, mosses, 

 fungi, and liverworts. See Professor Gb'ppert, Geol. Trans., 1845. In- 

 sects, spiders, small crustaceans, leaves, and fragments of vegetable tissue,, 

 are imbedded in some of the masses. Upwards of 800 species of insecte 

 have been observed ; most of them belong to species, and even genera, 

 that appear to be distinct from any now known, but others are nearly 

 related to indigenous species, and some are identical with existing forms, 

 that inhabit more southern climes. Wonders of Geology, vol. i. pp. 242, 



