312 GERMANY. 



the wilds of Sarmatia, as is proved by coins and other objects found along the 

 routes which they must have followed. 



Formerly the amber- seekers were content merely to scratch the sands, or to 

 wait until a storm strewed the shore with the precious fossil gum. Since 1872, 

 however, the search after it has been carried on by digging down to the blue clay, 

 which generally abounds in it. Before that time, in 1862, two fishermen conceived 

 the happy idea of dredging the bottom of the Haff. They succeeded beyond 

 expectation, and now employ steam-power in their operations, paying annually 

 £12,000 to the State for the privilege of doing so. Ordinarily amber fetches 

 between 10s. and £3 12s. per pound, but fancy prices are paid for fine specimens.* 



The amber diggings have led to the discovery of the ancient forests which 

 furnished this fossil resin. Many forests have grown and disappeared since that 

 amber age. Beneath the actual forest of Schwarzort, and at a depth of hardly more 

 thun a yard, have been discovered the remains of an oak wood. Deeper still, 

 below another layer of sand, appeared the vestiges of a third forest, which has been 

 traced all along the Nehrung. Now and then the sandy beach yields up roots 

 of yew-trees, hard like iron, and all the more remarkable as the yew has almost 

 entirely disappeared from Northern Germany. 



Submerged forests and peat bogs on the one hand, and marine deposits formed 

 high above the actual beach on the other, prove that the land has been sub- 

 jected to successive oscillations. Dr. Berendt, one of the most indefatigable 

 explorers of the Prussian coast, has distinctly recognised two upheavals and two 

 subsidences. Direct observations continued since the beginning of the century 

 have led to no definite result, and whilst some assert that the land is being 

 upheaved, others maintain that it is subsiding. 



This much, however, may be asserted, that within a comparatively recent epoch 

 the land did subside. Submerged peat bogs alone could certainly not be accepted 

 in proof of this, for on the island of Usedom and elsewhere peat grows in cavities 

 depressed below the level of the sea, from which they are separated by a ridge 

 of dunes. These bogs, if the sea were to destroy the barrier which now protects 

 them, would at once become submerged. But, in addition to forests and peat 

 bogs, there have been discovered the remains of human habitations at a depth of 

 10 feet below the actual level of the sea. 



Lagoons are numerous along the coast of Western Pomerania, and at many 

 places the sea has invaded the land, owing probably to a subsidence of the latter. 

 The narrow tongue of land which now separates the " Bodden," or Gulf, of 

 Jasmund, on the island of Riigen, from the sea, was much wider formerly, and 

 covered with fields and pastures. It is a barren strip of land now, and the waves 

 frequently wash over it, filling up the gulf with sand. Regamiinde, the ancient 

 port of Treptow, has been swallowed up by the sea, and a portion of the city of 

 Kolberg is secured from a similar fate only through the most assiduous attention 

 bestowed upon the embankments which protect it. The sand near that town 

 contains numerous particles of iron, and if violently disturbed after its surface 



* In 1S75 350,000 lbs of amber were found. 



