76 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



yellow-coloured piece of what looked like amber, which 

 (so my friend stated) had been picked up on the shore 

 at Aldeburgh. It was as big as three fingers of one's 

 hand, very transparent and fibrous-looking, owing to the 

 presence of fine bubbles in its substance arranged in 

 lines. I found an exactly similar piece from the same 

 locality in the collection of the Natural History Museum. 

 It was labelled " copal," and, I suppose, had been chemi- 

 cally ascertained to be that resin and not " amber," or, 

 to use the correct name, " succinite." How either of 

 these pieces got into the North Sea it is difficult to say. 

 Though the " copal " of commerce is obtained from the 

 West Coast of Africa, it may occur (though I have not 

 heard that it does) associated with true amber in Prussia. 

 A fossilized resin very similar to copal is found in the 

 London clay at Highgate and elsewhere near London, 

 and is called " copalite." It is possible, though not 

 probable, that the bits of amber found on our East Coast 

 beaches are derived from Tertiary beds, now broken up 

 and submerged in the North Sea, and do not travel to 

 us all the way from the Baltic. 



