"*
[footnote] *{The forests of amber-pines, 'Pinites succifer', were in the
southeastern part of what is now the bed of the Baltic, in about 55 degrees
N. lat., and 37 degrees E. long. The different colors of amber are derived
from local chemical admixture. The amber contains fragments of vegetable
matter, and from these it has been ascertained tht the amber-pine forests
contained four other species of pine (besides the 'Pinites succier'),
several cypresses, yews, and junipers, with oaks, poplars, beeches, etc. --
altogether forty-eight species of trees and shrubs, constituting a flora of
North American chracter. There are also some ferns, mosses, fungi, and
liverworts. See Professor Goppert, 'Geol. Trans.', 1845. Insects, spiders,
small crustaceans, leaves, and fragments of vegetable tissue, are imbedded
in some of the masses. Upward of 800 species of insects have been observed;
most of them belong to species, and even genera, that appear to be distinct
from any now known, but others are nearly related to indigenous species, and
some are identical with existing forms, that inhabit more southern climes.
-- 'Wonders of Geology', vol. i., p. 242, etc.] -- Tr.
We have now passed through the whole series of formations comprised in the
geological portion of the present work, proceeding from the oldest erupted
rock and the most ancient sedimentary formations to the alluvial land on
which are scattered those large masses of rock, the causes of whose general
distribution have been so long and variously discussed, and which are, in my
opinion, to be ascribed rather to the penetration and violent outpouring of
pent-up waters by the elevation of mountain chains than to the motion of
floating blocks of ice.
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