Natural History, 447 



cleaving in some directions, and breaking in other with a con- 

 choidal fracture. Tlie horizontal surfaces have the lustre of 

 diamond, the others only a greasy appearance. Its colour is white, 

 green, or yellow. It is transparent, brittle, and has the appearance 

 of talc. It is rather heavier than water; fuses at a low tempe- 

 rature, the solid part then floating, and crystallizes upon cooling. 

 It readily burns with a bright flame and much smoke. It is found 

 in the fissures and fractures of bituminous wood, which it sometimes 

 traverses, and where it appears to have been introduced by subli- 

 mation. The layer of lignite is from two to six feet thick, belongs 

 to a very recent formation, and contains fossil vegetables analogous 

 to those now existing. M. Koenlein calls it Resinous Naphthaline. 

 —Bull. Univ. B. xiv. 421. 



2. Aerolites contained in Hail.— It is said by M. Nelioubin, that 

 hailstones fell in the month of January, 1825, in the circle of 

 Sterletamak, in the government of Orenbourg, which contained 

 small stones ; these being collected and analyzed gave per cent.. 



Red Oxide of Iron 70.00 



Oxide of Manganese 7.50 



Magnesia 6.25 



Alumina 3.75 



Silica 7.50 



Sulphur and loss 5.00 



100.00 

 Kastner's Archives — Bull. Univ. A. x. 219. 



3. On Amber. — M. Berzelius adopts the opinion that amber is of 

 vegetable origin ; that, like ordinary resins, it has flowed from vege- 

 tables in the state of a balm, and has afterwards acquired hardness 

 gradually. " Amber," he says, " contains Jive substances, i. An 

 odoriferous oil, in small quantity ; ii. A yellow resin intimately com- 

 bined with this oil, dissolving freely in alcohol, ether and alkalies ; 

 very fusible; and resembling ordinary vegetable resins; iii. A resin 

 soluble with difficulty in cold alcohol, more freely in hot alcohol, from 

 which it separates on cooling as a white powder soluble in ether and 

 alkalies. These two resins and the volatile oil, if removed from amber 

 by ether, and then obtained by evaporation of the latter on water, 

 form a natural viscid balm, very odorous, of a clear yellow colour, 

 ^nd which gradually becomes hard, but retaining some odour. 

 There is every reason for supposing this to be precisely the sub- 

 stance from which amber originates ; but at the same time rather 

 poorer in essential oil than at first, and that the insoluble sub- 

 stances in amber have been gradually formed by a spontaneous 

 alteration of this balm, but at the same time have enveloped one 

 part of it, and so preserved it from entire decomposition or change; 

 iv. Succinic acid dissolved with the preceding bodies by ether, 

 alcohol, and alkalies ; v. A body insoluble in alcohol, ether, and 

 alkalies, and analogous in some points to the substance found by 



2H2 



