AMBER 135 



AMBER. (Succin, Fr.; Bernstein, Ger.) The Electron of the Greeks, to whom 

 this substance appears to have been well known. From its peculiar property of 

 manifesting electrical phenomena, we have derived our word electricity. It appears 

 to have been known to the Eomans under the names of lyncurium (a name also 

 applied by Theophrastus to a gem-stone, perhaps either tourmaline or zircon), and, 

 because of its supposed vegetable origin, succinum. The ancients also gave the name 

 electrum to a yellow metal containing gold and silver. See ELECTRUM. 



Amber is a mineral solid, of a yellow Colour of various shades, which burns entirely 

 away with flame, and consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, in nearly the same 

 proportions, and in the same state of combination, as in vegetable resin. The chemical 

 composition of amber, according to Schrotter, is 



Carbon . 78'82 



Hydrogen , 10-23 



Oxygen 10'9 



Its specific gravity varies, by Dr. Uro's trials, from 1-080 to 1-085. It becomes 

 negatively and powerfully electrical by friction. When applied to a lighted candle 

 it takes fire, swells considerably, and exhales a white smoke of a pungent odour ; 

 but does not run into drops. Copal, which resembles it in several respects, 

 differs in being softer, and in melting into drops at the flame ; and mellite, or 

 honey-stone, which is a mineral of a similar colour, becomes white when laid on a 

 red-hot coal. 



The texture of amber is resino-vitreous, its fracture conchoidal, and lustre glassy. 

 It is perfectly homogeneous ; sufficiently hard to scratch gypsum, and to take a fine 

 polish. It is, however, scratched by calcareous spar. When amber is distilled in a 

 retort, crystalline needles of succinic acid sublime into the dome, and oil of amber 

 drops from the beak into the receiver. Fossil resins, such as that of Highgate, 

 found in the London-clay formation, do not afford succinic acid by heat ; nor does 

 copal. 



It is now admitted that amber is not a simple resin. For the most part it 

 consists of a peculiar resin, which is said to resist the action of all known solvents ; 

 and it is to this substance that Dana has applied the term succinite, as a definite 

 mineral species. But in addition to this resin which forms from 85 to 90 per cent, 

 of amber there are two other resins soluble in alcohol and ether, together with the 

 oil and succinic acid above mentioned. It would appear that several distinct resinous 

 substances, occurring in a fossil state, have been classed together under the common 

 name of amber, while in commerce copal and gum anime are occasionally sold for true 

 amber. 



When amber is found embedded in its original position, it is usually in beds of the 

 brown-coal formation of lower tertiary age ; but fossil resins, apparently identical 

 with amber, also occur in upper cretaceous rocks, and in strata of even greater age. 

 As a rule, the amber is found almost uniformly in separate nodules, disseminated in the 

 sand, clay, or fragments of lignite of the plastic-clay formation. The size of these 

 nodules varies from that of a nut to a man's head ; but this magnitude is very rare in 

 true amber. It does not occur either in continuous beds, like the chalk-flints, or in 

 veins ; but it lies at one time in the earthy or friable strata which accompany or 

 include the lignites ; at another entangled in the lignites themselves. The pieces of 

 amber found in the sands, and other formations evidently alluvial, those met with on 

 the sea-coasts of certain countries, and especially Pomerania, come undoubtedly from 

 the above geological formation ; for the organic matters found still adhering to the 

 amber leave no doubt as to its primitive place. 



The vegetable origin of amber is satisfactorily determined by its chemical composi- 

 tion, its optical properties, as shown by Sir David Brewster, and by the condition 

 in which insects and the remains of insects are found in this resin, along with frag- 

 ments of leaves and stalks. Certain families of insects occur more abundantly than 

 others. Thus the hymenoptera, or insects with four marked membranaceous wings, 

 as the bee and wasp, are not abundant. The diptera, or insects with two wings, as 

 gnate and flies, are more numerous. Then come the spider tribe, some coleoptera 

 (insects with crustaceous shells or elytra, which shut together and form a longitudinal 

 suture down the back), or beetles principally those which live on trees, as the 

 elaterides, or leapers, and the chrysomelida. The insects appear evidently to havo 

 struggled after being entangled in the then viscous fluid, and occasionally a leg or a 

 wing is found at some distance from the body, which had been detached in tho efforts 

 of the insect to escape from the resin. Goppert has named the tree supposed to have 

 yielded most of the amber, Pinites succinifcr, but he has shown that several other 

 coniferous trees, of older tertiary ago, have also yielded this product, 



