AMBER 



73 



" Copal gum " of East Africa and the " Kauri resin " or 

 " Dammar " of New Zealand. Both of these products 

 are very much like amber in appearance, and can be 

 readily mistaken for it. The trees which produced the 

 amber of the Baltic were conifers or pine trees, and 

 flourished in early Tertiary times (many millions of years 

 ago). Their leaves, as well as insects of many kinds, 

 which have been studied and named by entomologists, 

 are found preserved in it. There is a very fine collection 

 of these insects in the Natural History Museum in 

 London. It is probable that more than one kind of 

 tree produced the amber-gum, and that its long " fossiliza- 

 tion" has resulted in some changes in its density and 

 its chemical composition. The East African copal is 

 formed by a tree which belongs to the same family as 

 our beans, peas, and laburnum. It is obtained when 

 freshly exuded, but the best kind is dug by the negroes 

 out of the ground, where copal trees formerly grew and 

 have left their remains, so that copal, like amber, is to a 

 large extent fossilized. The same is true of the New 

 Zealand dammar or kauri gum, which is the product of 

 a conifer called " Agathis australis," and is very hard and 

 amber-like in appearance. Chemically amber, copal, and 

 dammar are similar to one another but not identical. 

 Amber, like the other two, has been used for making 

 " varnish," and the early Flemish painters in oils, as well 

 as the makers of Cremona violins, made use of amber 

 varnish. 



A medicament called " eau de luce " was formerly 

 used, made by dissolving one of the products of the dry 

 distillation of amber (called " oil of amber ") in alcohol. 

 Now, however, amber is used only for two purposes — 

 besides decoration — namely, for the mouthpieces of pipes 

 and cigar tubes and for burning (for amber, like other 



