172 BRITISH CICADM. 



just after the era of the great salt formation of 

 GaUcia in the North of Austria. 



Sir Archibald A. Geikie places the amber beds of 

 Konigsberg (containing four or five feet of glauconitic 

 sand with abundant pieces of amber, which is the 

 fossil resin of different species of coniferous trees) in 

 the lower beds of the Oligoceiie series. Below these, 

 the Lower brown coal-series of sandstones, conglome- 

 rates and clays, with interstratified seams of brown 

 coal, occur ; in which an abundant terrestrial flora 

 is prominent. Other beds, elsewhere, are known to 

 consist of Pleistocene sandstones and clays, containing 

 beetles, with lignite mixed with nodules of amber. 



The vegetable origin of amber was pretty generally 

 guessed by the ancient writers. Aristotle, Dioscorides, 

 Pliny, and Tacitus all spoke of it ; but from Martial's 

 simile, " ut videatur apis nectare clausa suo," he seems 

 to have considered it to be an insect secretion. 



Sebastian Miinster, in 1554, also wrote, "De succino 

 quod in Prussia legitur," &c., to contain " bestiolae, ut 

 muscge, culices, apes, formicae," &c. 



This particular resin has been regarded with in- 

 terest on account of its electrical properties, and also 

 as being an odoriferous ingredient in sacred incense. 



The Prussian shore of the Baltic has been lonof 

 famous for its amber- beds. An immense sheet of 

 glacial ice probably, in early times, extended west- 

 wards over Europe, from the Vistula even to the 

 German Ocean, and covered an area connected with 

 the drainage of the present river Elbe, anterior to its 

 present drainage into the gulf of Danzig. 



Dr. A. Lissauer, of Leipsig, thinks that a bursting 

 of the banks of the ancient Vistula may have occurred 

 as far back as 3000 b.c. 



Neolithic remains of the works of man are abundant 

 in the old Vistula bed ; and very interesting carvings 

 in amber, representing men and animals, have been 

 recovered from the Danzig beds. These ornaments 

 have been referred to the stone-age of that district. 



