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are sometimes six feet in diameter, and inhabit the old pine forests ; 

 which forests, or at least the spots where they have been, are, he 

 says, the places where the amber is chiefly found. His conjecture 

 is founded on a substance having been found in the nests of these 

 insects, of the consistence of honey, or of half melted wax ; hav- 

 ing the yellow colour of common amber, yielding the same pro- 

 ducts by chemical analysis, and acquiring the same degree of 

 hardness by remaining some time in a solution of common salt. It 

 appears, from his observations, therefore, that we should consider 

 amber as a vegetable oil, rendered concrete by the acid of the ants ; 

 since wax, according to the experiments of La Metherie, is vege- 

 table oil hardened by the acid of the bee. 



But the circumstance, perhaps, from which may be deduced the 

 most powerful arguments against this substance being of animal 

 origin, and also against its being entirely of a vegetable nature, is its 

 being found in such large quantities at a considerable depth in the 

 earth. From the account of Junker, which was afterwards copied 

 by Neuman ; and from that which is delivered by Hoffman, we learn 

 that the king of Prussia gave orders that search should be made for 

 the subterranean beds of this substance. Directed, most probably, 

 by those marks which point out a spot particularly rich in bitumen, 

 and which are very frequently observable in that part of the world, 

 the required examination was commenced. After getting through 

 the ordinary superficial stratum, they found a bed of sand, beneath 

 which was a stratum of clay. On digging through this, a stratum 

 appeared, which seemed to be formed of wood, very old and de- 

 cayed, but which very readily took fire. This stratum of bitumi- 

 nous wood they generally found immediately over a stratum of 

 pyrites, which yielded sulphate of iron very copiously ; immedi- 

 ately below this was found a stratum of sand, the real matrix of 

 the amber, in which this bitumen was most plentifully found, scat- 

 tered in small pieces, and sometimes even accumulated in heaps. 



