242 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY, Lect. 111. 



of the ancient lands and waters entombed in the strata 

 we have thus cursorily surveyed, that I can only offer 

 a very brief account of the organic remains. I will 

 select a few of the fossils of the Paris basin as typical of 

 the zoology of the older tertiary epoch, and notice such 

 others from British localities, as may be requisite for the 

 elucidation of the subject. 



Dicotyledonous wood occurs in considerable abundance, 

 in the state of large trunks and branches, which appear to 

 have been drifted far out to sea, and are full of perforations 

 inclosing shells of boring mollusca. The strata around Lon- 

 don, and in the Isle of Sheppey, abound in specimens of this 

 kind. Leaves and stems of palms have been found in the 

 Paris basin, and in the Isle of Sheppey, &c. ; and the trunk 

 of a tree related to the palm, nearly four feet in diameter, 

 at Soissons. Fruits belonging to trees allied to the Areca, 

 pine, fir, cocoa- tree, &c. have been discovered in several 

 localities. The abundance of fruits of numerous genera 

 belonging to hot climates, that are accumulated in the Isle 

 of Sheppey, has already been mentioned (ante, p. 232). 

 Beds of lignite or brown coal, occur at Bovey Tracey in 

 Devonshire,* and in various parts of France, the Nether- 

 lands, &c. 



30. Amber. — The beautiful substance so remarkable for 

 its electric properties, Amber, is a production of the ter- 

 tiary epoch, and is highly interesting in a geological point of 

 view, from its containing insects and other organic bodies. 

 The Amber in common use is chiefly obtained from sub- 

 marine beds of lignite in Prussia, and along the coast of the 

 Baltic ; this substance being washed up by the action of 

 the sea, and drifted on the shore. It is a fossil resin, the 

 product of an extinct species of pine (Pinns succinifer). 

 Insects, spiders, small crustaceans, leaves, and fragments 



* See Medals of Creation, vol. i. p. 84. 



