374? Dr. Thomas on the Amber Beds of East Prussia. 



This view so immediately follows from the conviction of the 

 alluvial nature of the district, a fact recognized in the name by 

 which it is known, that it can be met only by new facts, except 

 we have recourse to mere vague abstractions. The amber might 

 thus be washed together, not only with the lignite to which it 

 bears no relation, but amber-wood might also have been brought 

 to the same place ; and should this occur accidentally in the 

 neighbourhood of other carbonized remains of plants, it would 

 not lead to the conclusion, that these also belong to the amber- 

 formation. 



It can scarcely be doubted that mighty waters have acted on 

 the southern shore of the Baltic. Whether the change which 

 the surface must have undergone may have arisen principally 

 from an influx or efflux of matter, is a question the answer to 

 which is surrounded by very great difficulties. The blocks of 

 granite, which in such immense numbers cover many tracts of 

 the coast, cannot well be regarded as an argument for the influx. 

 A stream of water capable of rolling such masses hundreds of 

 miles over the hills and valleys of its bed would have bared the 

 plain of Europe to its very ribs of rock, and had it brought mat- 

 ter for new deposits of such enormous size, those blocks of gra- 

 nite would at any rate have been the lowest. They lie however 

 in the most wonderful manner on the most recent surface of the 

 ground, a plain proof, as it should seem, that they were not 

 moved on the ground by those waves, but being inclosed in 

 masses of ice floated with them, and so were deposited on the 

 surface on the melting of the ice. If they owe their present po- 

 sition to such a phenomenon, this is not contrary to the suppo- 

 sition that the diluvial stream in general has not affected the 

 continent by destroying and washing out, any more than the 

 admission that the rows of hills which now traverse it owe their 

 origin to the influx of matter necessarily attending that deluge. 

 For if the ground presented an unequal resistance to the rush- 

 ing diluvial stream, whirlpools must have been formed, which, 

 the stronger and more numerous they were, must have caused 

 by their opposition relatively quiet tracts, as is plainly enough 

 indicated by the hills which still remain, and by their peculiar 

 form. We must admit that these alluvial heaps were first formed 

 when the diluvial waves had for the most part completed their 

 work of destruction, and in consequence of the necessarily de- 

 creasing energy of their motion gave a compensating deposit to 

 the ground, which perhaps bore a very small proportion to the 

 masses which were washed away from it. The question is not 

 now as to the always progressing decrease of the land which was 

 mentioned above, but refers to a much more important change of 

 the surface by which the tract, many miles in breadth, was affected, 



