20 FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 



salamanders, llie protei, the frogs, and a lizard with the wings 

 of a bat, called pterodactylus, on which the present is no place 

 to extend our remarks. 



Insects are found in the fossil state in calcareous, foliated 

 stones, and in amber, where they are preserved without any 

 alteration. In Prussia, where this resinous fossil production 

 is most usually found, the insects exhibited there are all of 

 them foreign to tlie climate. 



The debris of vegetable fossils are found in the ancient as 

 well as in the recent strata ; but they are more common in the 

 latter, and even on the surface of the earth. They consist for 

 the most part in ligneous trunks, almost always changed into 

 silex, in kernels, seeds, and the impressions of leaves, disposed 

 between the veins of fissile stones. Those found in the mines 

 of pit-coal belong for the most part to the family of fern, 

 bamboo, casuarinas, and other plants, foreign to the climate in 

 which they are thus found. These mines, situated between 

 the granitic or porphyritic schists, are very ancient, and contain 

 no marine shells. It is not thus with similar mines which 

 occur in the calcareous formation. They do not appear to be 

 equally ancient ; and instead of recognizing in them the im- 

 pressions of fern, &c. we find in some of them succinum, and 

 shells of the genus ampuUaria, which appear to appertain to 

 marine depositions. The palm-tree of different kinds has been 

 found in many situations in the fossil state, in countries to 

 which the particular species were not native. Near Canstadt, 

 in the duchy of Wirtemberg, an entire forest was discovered 

 of palm-trees in a horizontal position, each two feet in dia- 

 meter. In Cologne, from Bruhl, Liblar, Kierdorf, Bruggen, 

 and Balkhausen, as far as Watterberg, are found, over many 

 leagues of country, immense depositions of wood changed 

 almost entirely into mould, and covered with a bed of rolled 

 flints, from ten to twenty feet in height. This deposit, which 

 exceeds fifty feet in thickness, also contains trunks of trees, 

 and nuts, which exhibit a strong analogy to the areka which 



