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this clearly indicates its vegetable origin. Itis valuable for 
certain economical purposes, such as vases, necklaces, and 
mouth pieces for pipes, and a very large trade is carried on 
in its collection and manufacture for these purposes. 
It is a product of foreign countries, and is found chiefly 
on the shores of the Baltic, in Pomerania, Spain, on the shores 
of Sicily andthe Adriatic, Russia, Africa, Brazil, and pieces are 
sometimes washed up on our eastern coasts { but were probably 
derived from a distance perhaps by currents from the Baltic. 
Although the communication between the Baltic Sea and 
the German Ocean is broken by the land of Denmark, and 
only exists through the island of Zealand, and others, which 
lie between Denmark and Sweden, it is quite possible, and 
by no means improbable, that currents may have conveyed 
pieces of Amber, from the coasts of the Baltic, through the 
Cattegat into the North Sea, and thence they would occas- 
onally, though rarely, be picked up on our eastern coasts. 
They may perhaps have been brought thence during the post 
Tertiary period, when thenow land of Denmark was depressed 
beneath the ocean, and hence the North Sea and the Baltic 
would form one uninterrupted expanse of water. There is 
no reason to suppose that any Tertiary deposit, exactly 
equivalent to the Amber-bearing earth, exists in situ, at the 
bottom of the North Sea, otherwise Amber would be found 
in abundance on British shores washed by it. 
Mr. Hope says that Amber has been found in the gravel pits 
near London, derived probably from some of the Tertiary 
strata of our Island, I have detected small pieces of resin in 
} I lately had the pleasure of inspecting a fine collection of Amber, belonging to 
Lady Murray, at Leamington, collected by the late Mr. Fairholme on the 
coast at Ramsgate ; where it is washed up after storms, but probably derived 
from the Baltic. One large clouded piece was valued at £500. Most of the bits 
contained a variety of beautifully preserved Insects, among which were many 
entire Diptera, Orthoptera, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and one Lepidoptera. There 
were some plants, including a Dicotyledonous leaf and stems, and a small shell, 
apparently a fresh-water Mollusk, with a portionof the animal protruding 
from the interior, 
