342 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



horizontally on a level with the sea, where it is 

 exposed to the action of the waves. It was 

 discovered recently that this exposed position of 

 the amber stratum extends to a distance of some 

 fifty miles. This is the source of the "marine" 

 amber. The waves constantly wash this stratum 

 and bear the amber from its bed towards the shore, 

 where it is collected. 



The amber tree belonged to the flora of the 

 Tertiary period, wHen Europe was a vast archi- 

 pelago, the sea spreading over parts of England, 

 France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Hungary, 

 and Italy. A vast continent existed in the north, 

 which extended in the Arctic regions beyond 

 Spitzbergen, and was united with Greenland and 

 North America, while to the south and east it was 

 united with Iceland and the British Islands. 



The southern boundary of this continent was 

 considerably enlarged at the close of the secondary 

 period by the deposits of the Cretaceous Sea ; and 

 by repeated upheavals a broad belt was formed 

 embracing the islands of Riigen, Bombohn, Jut- 

 land and the Danish islands, and the space now 

 occupied by the Baltic. This newly-formed land 

 was separated from the rest of Europe by a great 

 sea-arm called the Tertiary Sea. On the borders 

 of this northern continent a luxuriant vegetation 

 was developed. Here grew the trees which pro- 

 duced the amber of commerce. 



The climate at the time of the formation of 

 the amber was sub-tropical. In Spitzbergen 

 the American incense-cedar (Libo-cedrus dccurreus) 

 flourished, and the sequoia (Sequoia sempervircns). 

 The sequoia, now confined to California, grew all 

 over Europe during the Miocene period, together 

 with its relative, the Glyptostrobus, a cypress now 

 found only in China and Japan. The fragrant 

 magnolia, the date-plum tree, the oak, pine, poplar 

 and walnut, Salisburia, Planera, and the elegant 

 Tliujopsis, now indigenous to Eastern Asia only, 

 flourished in Greenland ; while the vine, the tulip 

 tree, the elm and the mammoth tree flourished in 

 Iceland. 



The amber forests consisted largely of coniferous 

 trees. Professor Goppert distinguished thirty 

 species. This wealth of resiniferous trees leads 

 to the conclusion that amber was the product of 

 several species of conifers, the most common 

 being a " tree of life," resembling the American 

 Thuja occidentults. Of leaf-bearing trees may be 

 mentioned several species of oak, willows, beeches, 

 a birch, an elder and a poplar, and a camphor 

 tree whose living representatives are confined to 

 China and Japan and the adjacent islands. 



Professor Goppert named the amber-pine Pinites 

 succinifer, and has determined 163 species of plants 

 found in amber specimens, which he has classified 

 into sixty-four genera and twenty-four families. 



The inclusa in amber are of great interest. 



Although they furnish an incomplete picture of the 

 flora and fauna of the primeval forest, they never- 

 theless supply some features characteristic of that 

 early epoch. The amber fauna are rarely found 

 elsewhere as fossils, and many represent extinct 

 forms. Among the spiders, the genus Arachia 

 differs from the living species by the position of 

 the eyes, the length of the jaws, and by the head, 

 which is distinctly separated from the breast. A 

 feather, described by Berendt, shows that the amber 

 forest contained birds, and a solitary tuft of hair 

 proves the existence of Mammalia. Frogs, lizards, 

 and fishes found in amber have been introduced by 

 artificial means for purposes of deception. Bubbles 

 of air and even drops of water occur. 



The amber resin was shed in very different 

 stages of liquidity : sometimes it was glutinous, 

 sometimes it fell in drops from the branches, 

 yielding the drop and icicle forms ; sometimes it 

 fell on leaves, the forms of which it preserves with 

 remarkable delicacy. 



Many generations of the amber pine lived and 

 died, and vast quantities of the resin must have 

 accumulated. How these accumulations finally 

 broke up is uncertain. It is supposed to have been 

 brought about by some sudden cataclysm, which 

 tore loose a great part of the resin and threw it into 

 the Samland Gulf. It is probable that the pro- 

 duction of amber belongs to several periods in the 

 earth's formation, and that the resin remained 

 buried in the soil of the higher parts until the 

 diluvial sea flooded the entire north, and, with the 

 ruins of the devastated country, scattered the 

 deposit far and wide. The submersed amber was 

 covered with layers of greensand, marl and other 

 substances brought down by the rivers, until the 

 sea was filled up. Samland was first laid dry, then 

 the rest of Prussia, the dry land appearing like 

 islets which were ultimately connected with one 

 another. 



Walkcrburn, N.B.; March, 1898. 



Assembling Moths. — Mr. Herbert Williams 

 gives in the April " Entomologists' Record" some 

 interesting notes on the attractions of a female 

 Lasiocampa quercus (large egger moth). This, soon 

 after emerging from its cocoon, he put into a tin 

 larva box with one side perforated. The box was 

 placed in a tightly fitting black leather brief bag, 

 and he started for a locality where the moths 

 occurred. On arriving at about three o'clock in 

 the afternoon, Mr. Williams was shortly surrounded 

 with males of this species of moth, and could have 

 taken more than a hundred if he had required 

 them. This is no unusual fact, but a further note 

 is well worthy of attention. Nine days later Mr. 

 Williams went over the same ground with the same 

 bag, and in it the same larva tin. The female 

 moth had not been in it during the nine days 

 previous, nor was it then ; but the males came to 

 the bag all the same. Whatever be the power of 

 attraction, it had remained in the empty box for 

 more than a week. 



