44 Mac Culloch on Animah preserved in Amber. 



purpose of making this distinction; but the circumstances under 

 which these specimens exist, are not such as to warrant their 

 destruction for this purpose ; and, to ordinary collectors, any 

 refined or minute mode of chemical examination would be useless. 

 The only easy test which can be applied without destroying or 

 materially injuring a specimen, is that of burning. If the doubtful 

 specimen be held against a red-hot iron, the smell of the smoke 

 which is produced is always a sufficient distinction between the 

 resins and amber; and, to render this test of easy application, the 

 collector may easily familiarizes himself with the peculiar smells of 

 the essential oils, which, with very slight differences, are given out 

 by copal, gum animi, or the other recent resinous substances, and 

 that of the oil of amber which is produced by burning this mi- 

 neral. 



To this ultimate test, therefore, in doubtful cases, the collector 

 of specimens may have recourse; and it will always be sufficient 

 to distinguish, from genuine specimens of insects enclosed in 

 amber, those which have been entangled in the recent resinous ex- 

 udation of trees. Haiiy's test of the difference between copal and 

 amber, already alluded to, and which is founded on the different 

 manner in which a melted drop falls from each, is neither so prac- 

 ticable nor so satisfactory. 



I am sorry that I cannot inform your readers what is the real 

 nature of the vegetable resin in question, which is commonly sold 

 for amber when it contains insects. It has not been a matter 

 of observation among the collectors of these specimens, or the 

 dealers in them. Nor, as far as the chemical analysis of vegetable 

 compounds has yet proceeded, have we acquired any means of 

 ascertaining by chemical means the distinctions among these, 

 more than among any other vegetable products, of which the 

 general and ostensible characters are similar. It is however plain 

 that it is not copal, at least in all cases; but it bears, as already 

 insinuated, a striking resemblance to the gum known by the name 

 of gum animi. That such insects should be contained in more 

 resinous exudations than one is to be expected; and if those who 

 a-'e inclined to pursue this investigation should think it worth their 



