June 14, 1883] 



NA TURE 



153 



The Abietine.c are represented by 2 Pines of the 

 Tarda and 2 of the Pinaster section, and by 2 Firs. It 

 is impossible, with the material, to more than guess at 

 the affinities of the fossil with the existing species in such 

 an immense tribe, but 3 are compared with American, 

 and 1 with a European species. The presence of 2 species 

 of the Parasol Fir of Japan is of especial interest, if the 

 appearance of a double midrib on the back of the leaf is a 

 reliable character, but a doubt seems to be expressed in 

 the altered termination of the name, " Sciadopites." 

 Nearly all the rest are Cupressine/E, and many are repre- 

 sented by catkins and foliage. The Widdringtonias, a 

 section of Callitris confined to the Cape and Madagascar, 

 are represented by 2 species. The almost ubiquitous 

 Tertiary Libocedrus salicornioides, allied to the Chilian 

 Incense Cedar, is indisputably present, even its glaucous 

 colour being preserved. Two Thuyas are indistinguish- 

 able from the Chinese and the American Arbor-Vitae, 

 and a more doubtful form is nearly related to the 

 Thuyopsis dolabraia of Japan. A male catkin exactly 

 resembling that of the Red Cedar of Virginia (from which 

 pencils are made) represents the Junipers, and this extra- 

 ordinary assemblage is completed by the presence of the 

 common European Cupressus. The Taxodie.'E, again, 

 are represented by Sequoia Langsdorpi, a widespread 

 and somewhat northern Tertiary Conifer, closely allied to 

 the Californian Red Wood ; Taxodium distichum, the 

 Deciduous Swamp or Bald Cypress of Virginia, and the 

 well-known Tertiary, Glyptostrobus, all but indistinguish- 

 able from the living Chinese species. The last described 

 is an American type of Ephedra, or Jointed Fir. 



A group of Coniferae must therefore have existed in 

 Europe, almost on one spot, comprising representatives 

 from nearly every Geographical Province. There were 

 present such magnificent representatives of the Cali- 

 fornian Coniferae as the Red Wood, the Sugar Pine, the 

 Douglas Spruce, the scarcely less majestic Bald Cypress, 

 Red Cedar, Thyua, and Pinus rigida of more eastern 

 States, the Chilian Incense Cedar, the Parasol Fir, the 

 Arbor-Vitae, the Glyptostrobus, and the Thuyopsis of the 

 Eastern Coasts of Asia, the Scotch Fir, the Spruce and 

 the Cypress of Europe, and the Callitris of Southern 

 Africa. Based on the careful research of a man who has 

 made Conifers his especial study for fifty years, these 

 determinations have a value which the haphazard methods 

 of so many workers in Fossil Botany do not possess. 

 The causes which led to the dispersion and extinction in 

 Europe, in such relatively recent times, of so consider- 

 able a group of Coniferae would be interesting to trace 

 out. 



The similarity between the Amber Flora and the over- 

 lying Brown-coal Flora, described by Heer, lead to the 

 inference that its age must be Middle Miocene. The 

 deposits are uniformly sand, clay, and loam, in which are 

 imbedded partly rolled stones of various kinds and sizes. 

 The whole belongs to a vast and widely spread amber- 

 bearing "diluvial formation" which stretches from the 

 confines of the White Sea into Holland. The richest 

 deposits are situated along a strip of coast between 

 Memel and Dantzic, but the real home of amber has 

 been supposed to lie in the bed of the Baltic between 

 Bornholm and the mainland. It rests upon Cretaceous 

 rocks, and consists chiefly of their debris, forming a 

 peculiar mixture known as "blaue-Erde," which appears to 

 exist throughout the Province of Samland at a depth of 

 80 to 100 feet, and to contain an almost inexhaustible 

 supply of amber. The authors wish to correct the name 

 to " blau-grun," to distinguish it from the blue earth which 

 accompanies the brown coal in Silesia and 'elsewhere. 

 Immense quantities of amber are washed out to sea from 

 the coast, or brought down by rivulets and cast up again 

 during storms or in certain winds. The expectations that 

 amber-bearing beds of equal richness would be found at 

 greater depths farther from the sea have not been realised, 



and these already priceless and apparently inexhaustible 

 coast-deposits have thereby acquired an enhanced im- 

 portance. It seems probable that the amber-beds of the 

 North Sea belong to the same formation, and that these 

 may even have been continuous to the east coast of Great 

 Britain. 



Though the greatest quantity of amber is found on the 

 coast, the largest pieces, 6"5 and 9/5 kilos., were met with 

 inland. It is never found in paying quantities at a greater 

 depth than 4 to 6 feet, and chiefly in the "diluvial beds " 

 with rolled fragments of brown coal, wood, and stones. 

 It is rare in the brown-coal formation, and even 

 when met with is almost confined to the Upper blue 

 and plastic clays. The quantity, however, seems to be 

 inexhaustible, for the rich and celebrated blue-earth of 

 Samland extends along the coast for 60 miles, and 

 possesses a breadth of about 12 miles and an average 

 thickness of 10 feet. Runge estimates that each cubic 

 foot contains T V lb. of amber, which gives a total of some 

 9,600,000,000 lbs. The actual yield at present is 200,000 

 to 300,000 lbs. per annum, or at least five times the 

 quantity estimated to be cast up by the waves of the 

 Baltic on this coast, so that it appears, at the present rate 

 of quarrying, there is a supply for some 30,000 years to 

 come. A good deal of amber, it must be remembered, is 

 cast up on 01 her Baltic shores and along the North Sea. 



In an inquiry as to the probable extent of Pine forests 

 that would be required to produce such a bulk of amber, 

 the authors take the Norway Spruce (Pinus abies, Linn.) 

 for the purpose of comparison. Estimating that the full 

 age of the species is 120 5 ears, sixty to seventy of which 

 are resin-producing, they conclude that 6000 lbs. per acre 

 would be the product of each generation, and therefore 

 that the Baltic Sea, with its area of 6370 German 

 miles, might yield, if covered with Norway Spruce, 

 8,408,400,000 lbs., or about an equivalent to the quantity 

 contained in the 20 German square miles of the Samland 

 " blue-earth " referred to above. It thus appears that if 

 this amber in it had been produced on the spot, some 

 300 generations would have been required to furnish it, 

 but it is of course far more probable that it has been 

 collected together in its present position by the action of 

 water. These estimates being founded on a species 

 relatively poor in resin, even notoriously less resinous 

 than Pinus austriaca and other existing species, it is 

 likely that the amber yield was in excess. 



The Amber Flora presents a group of cryptogams com- 

 prising 20 Fungi, 12 lichens, and about as many mosses 

 — plants hardly represented in any other Tertiary Flora. 

 It is united to other Miocene Floras, not only by its 

 Coniferae, but by the widely-spread Cinnamonum poly- 

 morphum. It contains 42 species of Conifers, Cupuliferae, 

 Betuleas, Salicineae, &c, a species of Hakea, in all 

 27 Monopetalae and 12 Polypetake, including such rarely 

 preserved orders as Scrophulariaceae, Primulacea;, Capri 

 foliaceas, and Loranthaceae, the gatherings from forest, 

 meadow, and fen. These are to be described in a forth- 

 coming work. The Coniferae are, however, of chiefest 

 interest, more especially as, while resembling the resinous 

 species of the present day, their secretions differed so 

 essentially in quality as to have left a product unknown 

 in any other geological age. 



J. Starkie Gardner 



THE STORY OF A BOULDER 



THE Warwickshire papers report a curious open-air 

 service held on Sunday last at Stockton, near Rugby, 

 to "consecrate" a large granite boulder which has been 

 inscribed and railed in at the expense of the villagers. 

 It lies on a bed of concrete in the centre of the little 

 place, protected by a handsome iron railing ; a few square 

 inches are polished to show the grain ; an inscription 

 records that it was brought from Mount Sorrel, a distance 



