No. 459.] AMBER IN EASTERN UNITED STATES. 143 



article above quoted, also indulges in speculations concerning the 

 kind of wood from which the amber was probably derived, and 

 says (p. 13) : "But I have not been able to ascertain the species 

 to which it belongs." 



Apparently nothing further was recorded in regard to the 

 subject until 1830, when S. G. Morton published a paper 

 entitled : " Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Ferru- 

 ginous Sand Formation of the United States, with Geological 

 Remarks" {Am.Journ. Set., vol. 17, 1830, pp. 274-295) in which 

 he mentions (p. 293) "vast deposits of lignite with amber," in 

 the sections exposed in cuttings made for the Delaware and 

 Chesapeake canal. Incidental reference to the above may also 

 be found in a subsequent article "On the Analogy which exists 

 between the Marl of New Jersey and the Chalk Formation of 

 Europe" {Ibid., vol. 22, 1832, pp. 90-95). 



After this, for a period of some fifty years, our native amber 

 apparently attracted but little attention, or at least there does 

 not seem to have been anything additional recorded in regard 

 to it during that time. A popular article, by Mrs. Erminnie A. 

 Smith, entitled " Concerning Amber," was published in the 

 American Naturalist, for March, 1880, in which the only refer- 

 ence in this connection is the following brief paragraph (p. 187) : 

 " Very little amber has as yet been found in the United States. 

 Gay Head, Martha's Vineyard, Camden, N. J., and Cape Sable, 

 Md., only are mentioned as its localities. A barrel full of sma 1 

 pieces was taken out of the greensand in New Jersey, which 

 through some mistake was burned." 



At a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, on 

 February 5th, 1883, Mr. Geo. F. Kunz exhibited a mass of 

 amber \ lb. in weight, which was said to have come from the 

 Tertiary deposits of Nantucket, and read a paper " On a large- 

 Mass of Cretaceous Amber from Gloucester County, New Jei- 

 sey," in which was described a mass weighing 64 oz., found in 

 Kirby's marl pit, near Harrisonville {Trans. X. V. Acad. Sci., vol. 

 2, 1883, pp. 85-86). In the subsequent discussion of this paper 

 Dr. J. S. Newberry is quoted as remarking that "in one pit [in 

 Gloucester Co.] a whole barrel full had been found and burned 

 by the workmen " ; which remark probably has reference to the 



