I06 NATURAL SCIENCE. August, 1896. 



in England, and it was generally supposed that those ornaments had 

 been imported from abroad. Even Clement Reid states that the 

 manufacture would only be understood in a district where the raw 

 material was comparatively plentiful ; I am not, however, in a position 

 to assent to this. First it must be noticed that there are also some 

 amber objects which are attributed to the stone age, and it is not 

 proved that in this period a connection between the English and the 

 Prussian coast already existed. Therefore these neolithic ornaments — 

 if they should be foreign — could only have been brought from the 

 Danish coast or from the German shore of the North Sea, where 

 amber occurs a little more often ; but, in general, why should English- 

 men have sent for the fossil from abroad when they could get it at 

 home ? Add to this, that the working of amber is quite easy, and 

 that we know of numerous articles of other countries which are 

 fashioned very delicately by primitive instruments of bone and stone. 

 Certainly the manufacture of amber is not more difficult than that of 

 jet, whereof we know many beads and other articles made in the stone 

 age in England. Besides, the characteristic manner of perforation of 

 the jet ornaments is like that of the Prussian amber objects of that 

 period, which proves anew that the same uses and methods, as well 

 as customs, may originate in different countries, without any reference 

 to one another. Moreover, we have learned that in England, even in 

 these days, there exists an original amber manufacture, unchanged 

 by foreign influence, and just in the same way the fossil could have 

 been worked a few thousand years before. 



Of course, amber is not abundant on the shore, and usually it is 

 mixed with sea-weeds, for which reason many specimens may be 

 overlooked, but the prehistoric articles also are rare, and "the present 

 annual yield is more than sufficient to account for all the ancient 

 amber ornaments yet found in England" (Reid, I.e.). Having 

 regard to all these circumstances, it is simpler, on the whole, to trace 

 the ornaments to English amber (succinite) rather than to foreign 

 importation. Still, it may be that this and the other amber articles 

 of the bronze and of the iron age have been brought from abroad. 



H. CoNWENTZ. 



{To be continued.) 



