In the trunk
of a tree found at Bonn, Noggerath counted 792 annual rings.*
[footnote] *Buckland, 'Geology', p. 509.
In the north of France, at Yseux, near Abbeville, oaks have been discovered
in the turf moors of the Somme which measured fourteen feet in diameter, a
thickness which is very remarkable in the Old Continent and without the
tropics. According to Goppert's excellent investigations, which, it is
hoped, may soon be illustrated by plates, it would appear that "all the
amber of the Baltic comes from
p 284
a coniferous tree, which, to judge by the still extant remains of wood and
the bark at different ages, approaches very nearly to our white and red
pines, although forming a distinct species. The amber-tree of the ancient
world ('Pinites succifer') abounded in resin to a degree far surpassing that
manifested by any extant coniferous tree; for not only were large masses of
amber deposited in and upon the bark, but also in the wood itself, following
the course of the medullary rays, which, together with ligneous cells, are
still discernible under the microscope, and peripherally between the rings,
being some times both yellow and white."
"Among the vegetable forms inclosed in amber are male and femald blossoms of
our native needle-wood trees and Cupuliferae, while fragments which are
recognized as belonging to thuia, cupressus, ephedera, and castania vesca,
blended with those of junipers and firs, indicate a vegetation different
from that of the coasts and plains of the Baltic.
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