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OBTAINING AMBER. 



Whether new stores of amber are now being formed, or 

 whether, like coal, it was the result of causes not now in 

 operation, is an unsolved problem. The specimens obtained 

 differ considerably; some are pale as primrose, some deep 

 orange or almost brown ; some nearly as transparent as crys- 

 tal, some nearly opaque. Large pieces, uniform in color and 

 translucency, fetch high prices; and there are fashions in 

 this matter for which it is not easy to account, seeing that 

 the Turks and other Orientals buy up, at prices which Euro- 

 peans are unwilling to give, all the specimens presenting a 

 straw-yellow color and a sort of cloudy translucency. The 

 Russians, on the contrary, prefer orange-yellow transparent 

 specimens. The amber is seldom obtained by actual mining. 

 It is usually found on sea-coasts, after storms, in rounded 

 nodules ; or, if scarce on shore, it is sought for by men clad 

 in leather garments, who wade up to their necks in the sea, 

 and scrape the sea-bottom with hooped nets attached to the 



end of long poles ; 

 or (rather danger- 

 ous work) men go 

 out in boats, and 

 examine the faces 

 of precipitous cliffs, 

 picking off, by 

 means of iron 

 hooks, the lumps 

 of amber which 

 they may see here 

 and there. Some, 

 times a piece 

 weighing nearly a pound is found, and a weight of even ten 

 pounds is recorded. As small pieces can easily be joined 

 by smoothing the surfaces, moistening them with linseed oil, 

 and pressing them together over a charcoal fire, and as gum 

 copal is sometimes very like amber, there is much sophistica- 

 tion indulged in, which none but an expert can guard against. 

 In fashioning the nodules of amber, whether genuine or 



SEARCHING FOR AMBER. 



