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



with peculiar energy to the destruction of the western shore of 

 Samland, where it is matter of history, that a tract of land* a 

 mile broad has disappeared near the ruins of Adalberts chapel, 

 which now stands close to the sea. If then we suppose that in 

 yet earlier times the tract which is now covered by the East Sea, 

 was towards the north not so closed to the present Frozen Ocean, 

 that the currents of the Atlantic could not penetrate, it appears 

 not improbable that a still more rapid destruction of land may 

 have then taken place. What remains cannot be regarded as the 

 shore of a retreating sea, but rather as a great expansion of a 

 formation, of which a part, up to the present north coast of Sam- 

 land, is exposed to view by a partial elevation of the land. The 

 small plots of land which, under the name of the *low grounds 

 (Nehrungen), separate the mouths of the streams of this district, 

 the Weichsel, the Pregel and the Memel, as great inland lakes 

 from the sea, appear to me to be regarded improperly as mere 

 dunes ; they intimate rather, by their coast projecting into the sea, 

 the course of those fragments of the formation which could not 

 pass off, and allow us to recognise in the basin of water left be- 

 hind them, their sinking towards the south and east. The moving 

 sand, which is the sport of the winds on their summit, is scarcely 

 to be regarded as the rejectamenta of the sea, but rather as an 

 actual element of the formation, like the loose sand on the north 

 coast of Samland, which arises from its torn-up strata. 



But it is time to return to the lignite which accompanies those 

 strata. The small degree of interest which these objects excited 

 on the spot, and the consequent impossibility of finding any in- 

 formation there as to their true import, induced me to send the 

 whole of the fossil vegetable remains to Professor Goppert of 

 Breslau, who has the most intimate acquaintance with, the fossil 

 flora. I neglected not to send written notes of the observations 

 which I had made as to the circumstances under which they oc- 

 curred. He submitted them to a thorough examination, the re- 

 sults of which were communicated to the work of Berendt above 

 quoted. He gave his decided opinion, that of the fragments of 

 Conifers, two, belonging to Pinites sylvestris and Pinites Pumilio, 

 remind one so exactly of the now existing forms, that they can- 

 not be distinguished from them ; the others, which formed far 

 the greater portion of the collection, gave rise to the species 

 Pinites Thomasianus and Pinites brachylepis, forms which do not 

 now exist. The perfect agreement of all these remains in their 

 fossil appearance and origin left no doubt as to their being 

 really fossils. But the question, whether the flora to which they 

 owe their origin is connected with the occurrence of amber-resin, 



* I do not myself answer for the accuracy of this statement. — Dr. Th. 



