AMBER TREE AMERICA. 



oFtlic Baltic in large quantities. Prussia and Pome- 

 ran ia afford it in abundance. Tlie Ibnuer country was 

 celebrated for its amber, as early as the time of The- 

 odoric the Goth, who, we are told, imported it from 

 thence. On account of its beautiful colour, great 

 transparency, and the fine polish it receives, amber is 

 even now considered as an ornamental stone, and is 

 cut into necklaces, bracelets, snuff-boxes, and other 

 articles of dress. Previous, however, to the discovery 

 of the diamond, and the other precious stones of 

 India, it was the most highly prized of jewels, and 

 was employed in all kinds of ornamental attire. 

 Great quantities of it are annually exported from 

 Dant/jg to Constantinople, the Levant, Persia, and 

 Fraiuv. The most considerable purchasers of amber 

 are t'ie merchants of America and Greece; but it is 

 still ii'ieertain how they dispose of it. Amber forms 

 an important article of exchange in Africa ; and 

 when dissolved, it is the principal ingredient in a 

 species of varnish, named amber varnish. 



AMBER TREE. Is the Anlhospcrmum Mth'w- 

 picnin of Willdenow; a dioeceous plant from the Cape 

 of Good Hope. It bears some resemblance to a heath, 

 and the leaves are highly fragrant when bruised : 

 hence its English name. 



AMBASSIS. A genus of spinous finned fishes, 

 of very small si/,e, and inhabiting the fresh waters of 

 tropical countries. The gill-lid is pointed, and there 

 are two spines on the gill-flap and one upon the Hrst 

 ray of the anterior dorsal fin. They bear some 

 slight resemblance to the perches, to which natural 

 family they are referred. Some of them are quite 

 transparent ; and they are caught in numbers in 

 some of the warmer countries, and prepared like 

 anchovies. 



AMBROSIA (Willdenow). A genus of eight 

 species of sweet-smelling annuals, natives of North 

 America and the south of Europe. They belong to 

 the natural order Composita;, and hold a low rank on 

 the scale of vegetation ; their scent being the only 

 property for which they are regarded. 



AMBLYGONITE. A pale green mineral, marked 

 superficially with reddish and dark yellow spots. 



It is found massive, and crystallised, in oblique four- 

 sided prisms ; is of a vitreous lustre, fracturing un- 

 even, and the fragments rhnmboidal. 



AMEIVA. A genus or sub-genus of American 

 Saurian reptiles, belonging to the lizard family, but 

 differing from the true lizards, and also from the 

 monitors. They inhabit the banks of rivers and 

 streams in the forests of tropical America, depositing 

 their eggs in the sand, and occasionally taking to the 

 water, in which they can both swim and dive with 

 much ease. Their tails are round, their heads try- 

 raneidal, they have no scaly plates over the eyes ; 

 the scales on the neck and throat are small, and those 

 on the posterior part of the body rather larger. The 

 species are numerous, but not well defined. Indeed, 

 the natural history of reptiles, in all its departments, 

 is very imperfect, there being many unnamed spe- 

 cimens in most collections, and the habits of few, 

 indeed, bein- accurately known. 



AMELANCHIER (Lindley). A name given 

 to a kind of medlar, with which it used to be asso- 

 ciated. The genus consists of three species of deci- 

 duous shrubs, and one evergreen. Like the medlar, 

 they are icosandrious, and in the natural order 

 Kosncccc. The genus is distinguished from mespilus 

 by its ten-celled ovary. A> shrubs they are used 



in ornamental planting, but only for the sake of 

 variety. 



AMELLUS Asters. A family of three species 

 of North American perennial herbs. They belong- 

 to Compositce, but of no striking character. This 

 name is given by Virgil to a beautiful flower growing 

 on the banks of some river, but which has never been 

 truly identified by botanists ; the general opinion runs 

 that Virgil's plant is no other than the Aster timcllits, 

 a common plant in every flower muden. 



AMENTACE.E. lethehundred-and-forty-second 

 order of the Jussieuan system. The order is well 

 defined, and embraces the greater number of our 

 most useful forest trees. The principal mark of dis- 

 tinction is the unisexual flowers ; that is, the males 

 are placed in aments or catkins, quite separated 

 from the females. The catkins of I he hazel, or 

 common nut tree, give a very good idea of this 

 mode of florescence. For though the catkins differ 

 in size, colour, and form, according to the kind of 

 tree, yet their agency is the same in all. The de- 

 velopment of the males usually precedes that of the 

 females, and on some trees is very conspicuous, as 

 on the willows and poplars, which appear to receive 

 a kind of clothing from the countless numbers of 

 male catkins borne by them. In this order we find 

 the following genera : viz. willow, poplar, alder, birch, 

 hornbeam, hop-hornbeam, hazel, oak, beech, Spanish 

 chestnut, plane, Comptonia, candleberry, myrtle, and 

 casuarina; all of which are described under their 

 English names. See PLATE. 



AMERICA, or the Western Continent. One of 

 the grand divisions of the habitable globe ; and one 

 which, whether we regard any one of the kingdoms of 

 nature singly, all the three in their connexion, or the 

 whole in their succession, opens a field of great and 

 peculiar interest to the student of nature. From 

 the comparatively recent period at which this vast 

 portion of the world was added to the knowledge of 

 the rest, it is frequently styled " the New World ;" and 

 in its natural history it is as new as in its geography. 

 Not that it is in any respect a more recent forma- 

 tion, because on it the traces of remote antiquity arc 

 as visible as on any other part of the earth ; and 



though, of the parts of it which are now under cul- 

 ture, the greater portion has been won from a state 

 of wild nature, in times so recent as that the whole 

 progress is matter of easily obtained history, yet we 

 can no more assign a date to the first action of those 

 causes which brought America into the state in which 

 it was first known to European discovery, than we 

 can assign a date to the turning of great part of 

 central Africa into a desert, or to the drying up o 

 those waters which, according to the traces which 

 remain, and which are too marked and decided for 

 leaving any doubt, once covered a great portion of 

 central Asia. 



The grand point of difference, and the one which 

 gives America its principal charm in the estimation of 

 the naturalist is, that we can have a clear view of the 

 whole continent as it came from the hand of nature, 

 or, which is the same in effect, as it is moulded and 

 fashioned by natural causes only. The cultivation which 

 was carried on by the Mexicans, the Peruvians, and 

 some other people, among the mountains of the west, 

 was, according to the accounts of the parlies them- 

 selves, (and nations have never shown any disposition 

 to abridge their annals,) of comparatively recent intro- 

 duction, and limited extent. Human industry had not 



