AMBER 



HAVE in my museum a piece of amber 

 in which some small flies with gauzy 

 wings can be plainly discerned. Ages 

 ago these insects must have alighted 

 upon some resin oozing out of a pine tree, of a 

 species that is now extinct (Pinus succinifer), and, 

 held fast by the glutinous sap, they were embedded 

 and enshrined there, until, in the course of time, the 

 resin became mineralised into what we call amber. 

 Although this substance is occasionally found 

 in England and France and rather plentifully in 

 Australia, the chief supply comes to us from the 

 south-eastern shores of the Baltic. A forest of the 

 amber-yielding pine must have existed there long 

 ago. It is now submerged, and in calm weather 

 the fossil trees and immense deposits of amber can 

 be discerned on the ocean-floor. 



The amber fishers, clothed in leather and provided 

 with hooked forks and hand nets, wade into the 

 sea, and gather such fragments of amber as may be 

 floating on the surface ; but the larger and finer 

 pieces are obtained by rowing out from the shore 

 and raising the masses of amber with pronged forks 

 and nets. Even better results are obtained by 



