Chap. 11.] AMBEE. 399 



ever, calls these wild beasts '' langae," and gives the banks of 

 the river Padus as their locality. Sudines says, that it is a 

 tree in reality, that produces amber, and that, in Etruria, this 

 tree is known by the name of " lynx ;'* an opinion which is 

 also adopted by Metrodorus. Sotacus expresses a belief that 

 amber exudes from certain stones in Britannia, to which he 

 gives the name of '' electrides/' Pytheas says that the 

 Gutones,'' a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an 

 aestuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory ex- 

 tending a distance of six thousand stadia ; that, at one day's 

 sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores 

 of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being 

 an excretion of the sea in a concrete form ; as, also, that the 

 inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their 

 neighbours, the Teutones. Timseus, too, is of the same be- 

 lief, but he has given to the island the name of BasiliaJ^ 



Philemon says that electrum does not yield a flame J' Nicias, 

 again, will have it, that it is a liquid produced by the rays of 

 the sun ; and that these rays, at the moment of the sun's 

 setting, striking with the greatest force upon the surface of 

 the soil, leave upon it an unctuous sweat, which is carried off 

 by the tides of the Ocean, and thrown up upon the shores of 

 Germany. He states, also, that in Egypt it is similarly pro- 

 duced, and is there called ^' sacal ;"'^ that it is found in India, 

 too, where it is held as a preferable substitute for frankin- 

 cense ; and that in Syria the women make the whirls of their 

 spindles of this substance, and give it the name of *' harpax,"'^ 

 from the circumstance that it attracts leaves towards it, chaff, 

 and the light fringe of tissues. According to Theochrestus, 

 amber is thrown up by the tides of the Ocean, at the foot of 

 the Pyrensean range ; an opinion adopted also by Xenocrates. 

 Asarubas, who has written the most recently upon these sub- 

 jects, and is still living, informs us, that near the shores of the 

 Atlantic is Lake Cephisis, known to the Mauri by the name 

 of '' Electrum ;" and that when this lake is dried up by the 

 sun, the slime of it produces amber, which floats upon 

 the surface. Mnaseas speaks of a locality in Africa called 



"'s See B. iv. c. 28. "Js See B. iv. c. 27. 



'' Said in reference to tbe electric spnrk, Ajasson thinks. 



'^ In Hebrew, this word means " a stone." 



''^ From the Greek dpTra^w, "to drag." 



