lOO NATURAL SCIENCE. August. 



1*5 to 2. Knocking and cutting easily splits it asunder, and therefore 

 it is not of much value for working. Its fracture is conchoidal and 

 glassy. By heating it to between i40°-i8o° C. i^ becomes inflated, 

 and by heating more it begins to melt. The plant which produced 

 gedanite is not known, but sometimes the amber encloses small 

 fragments of a pine-like wood, possibly belonging to the trees which 

 produced the resin. Small leaves also of other plants, which can be 

 scarcely determined, and several kinds of insects are found in the 

 interior of this fossil resin. 



2. Glessite probably is a gum-resin of a vegetable hitherto 

 unknown. It is of brown colour, almost opaque and also without 

 polarisation or fluorescence. The degree of hardness is 2. The 

 fracture is conchoidal and greasy. No remains of plants or animals 

 are found in the interior. 



3. Succinite is usually transparent or translucent, sometimes 

 opaque, and it shows all gradations from clear to milky or quite 

 opaque appearance. The yellow colour is the most common, but it 

 is found in many other colours, such as green, red, white, or black. 

 There is probably no tone of colour which might not be represented 

 by specimens of succinite. The crust is dark-coloured and firmly 

 adherent. The hardness is 2 to 3, greater, therefore, than that of all 

 other kinds of Baltic amber. It is true it is somewhat brittle, but it 

 can be worked very well ; its fracture is conchoidal and greasy. Its 

 specific gravity is i'05o to 1*096, and; owing to its lightness, pieces 

 are often driven ashore by waves of the sea. When burnt, succinite 

 gives off an agreeable aromatic odour, though it irritates the mucous 

 membrane of the mouth and nose. When heated, it melts at 250^^ 

 or 300° C, without being inflated before ; its melting-point is, 

 therefore, higher than that of gedanite, which is very similar to 

 succinite in other respects. The chief products obtained by its 

 distillation are 3 to 8 per cent, succinic acid, a peculiar empyreumatic 

 oil, carbonic acid, water, and hydrogen. The great amount of 

 succinic acid is very characteristic of this kind of amber. The 

 elementary analysis of succinite, according to O. Helm, is the 

 following : — 78-63 per cent, carbon, 10-48 per cent, hydrogen, 10-47 

 per cent, oxygen, and 0-42 sulphur. An investigation of its solubility 

 gives the following results: 20 to 25 per cent, is soluble in alcohol, 20*6 

 per cent, in chloroform, 18 to 23 per cent, in ether. 



In general, succinite is the most common and the best known 

 of the Baltic ambers, and of all ambers of the world, wherefore it 

 might be termed Baltic Amber par excellence. Together with gedanite 

 and glessite, also with loose rounded bits of carbonised woods, and 

 various remains of crustaceans, echinids, etc., it is found in a deposit 

 of sand containing glauconite, and called Blue Earth, belonging to the 

 Lower Oligocene formation of the Samland in Prussia. This is not 

 the primitive position of these resins ; they have been floated there by 

 the waves in the beginning of the Tertiary period. However, 



