868 On the Fossil Plants found in Anther. 



Amber is never found isolated in large or small masses in the 

 bituminous wood of the Brown-coal with resin-ducts of a single row 

 of cells, which never contain yellow masses of resin, but only dark- 

 brown transparent resin-drops, as in the Cupressinece, or the Cupres- 

 sinoxylon of Goeppert. The compound resin-ducts of tha Abietinem 

 alone are filled with amber. 



It is probable that the amber and its plant-remains have been 

 drifted to the places in which they are now found. The author 

 knows of no well-authenticated instance of the occurrence of amber 

 in the Brown-coal formation itself; it occurs in the drift-beds above 

 it, where, however, it does not appear to have originally belonged. 

 Scheerer has found it in Norway ; Von Brevern, atG ischiginsk in 

 Kamtschatka ; Rink, in Haven Island, near Disco Island, Green- 

 land ; and in these instances it is generally in drift-beds. The sup- 

 position, however, that it belongs to the Drift-period is difficult to 

 substantiate, the flora of that period being as yet but little known. 

 The stomach of the fossil Mastodon found in New Jersey contained 

 twigs of Thuja occidentalis (found in the Amber-flora) ; and in the 

 Erie Canal, in New York State, at a depth of 118 feet there have 

 been found freshwater shells, together with portions of Abies Cana- 

 densis, which still grows in the neighbourhood, and leaves of which 

 are recognised (though with some doubt) in the amber. The fossil 

 wood of the Drift-beds of Siberia, also, is nearly related to that of 

 the present day.* 



The height at which amber is found at the Castle on the Riesen- 

 gebirge near Helmsdorf is nearly 1250 feet [German] above the sea 

 level, and at Grossman's Factory near Tannhausen, at 1350 feet. 



The amber is not derived from one species of wood only (Pinites 

 succinifer), as Professor Goeppert formerly thought, but also from 

 eight other species, including the Pinus Rinkianus, in which Vau- 

 pelt observed the amber of Disco Island. 



It is probable that all the A bietince, and perhaps the Cupressinece, 

 have furnished their share of the resinous matter (at first consisting 

 of various specifically different resins) that afterwards by fossiliza- 

 tion became amber ; and this is supported by the author's experi- 

 ments in the formation of amber from resin by the wet process, as 

 in his experiments on the formation of coal from recent plants.f 



In form the amber is either like drops, indicative of a former semi- 

 fluid condition, or as the casts of resin-ducts and cavities. Large 

 nodular masses occur, which must have been accumulated in the 

 lower part of the stem or the root, as in the Copal trees. — (Quarterly 

 Journal of the Geological Society, vol. x., No. 37.) 



* See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. vi. Part 2. Miscell. p. 66.— Tkansl. 

 t Ibid., p. 33.— Tkansl. 



