VOL. XXXIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. l6l 



and peruses the authors who have treated this subject, he will, Dr. Breyuius 

 thinks, acknowledge with him, that among natural bodies included in amber, 

 those from the vegetable kingdom are the most uncommon ; and of these, the 

 parts of the more perfect plants, as the leaves, pods, flowers, &c. if any such be 

 found, are the most so. The reason of this doubtless is, that, according to the 

 opinion of the moderns, amber is naturally prepared in subterraneous places, to 

 which the parts of vegetables, as growing on the surface of the earth, do with 

 difficulty, and but accidentally, or very rarely reach ; while insects, though in- 

 habitants of the air, in order to defend themselves from the cold, and other in- 

 clemencies of the weather, or for some other reason, frequently and spontane- 

 ously retire into chinks, hiatuses, and subterraneous cavities, and there hasten 

 to their entombing ; and where they are entangled, involved and suffocated, in 

 the amber, which is still in a liquid state, and with which they harden, and so 

 are embalmed as it were for ever. 



One Philip Benlows showed the Doctor a glebe of this kind, which included 

 a leaf, and which he valued at upwards of 30 florins. It was almost of an oval, 

 but compressed figure, and of the size represented fig. 12, pi. 3; it was 4- of an 

 inch thick, and of that kind, which, from its resemblance to the colour of the 

 wine of that name, is called Falernian amber ; it was pretty clear and pure, and 

 without affording the least suspicion of a cheat ; quite through the middle 

 lengthwise, it included an expanded leaf of the pennate kind, or according to 

 others of the alate, though not so properly ; obscure, it is true, but of a 

 shining gold colour, it yielded a very agreeable sight by the reflection and re- 

 fraction of the rays of light. This leaf was not entire, but broken off at both 

 extremities, as represented in the figure, and it consisted of 5 oblong small 

 leaves, somewhat pointed on both sides, in conjugations, almost equally distant 

 from each other on the common rib; some of these small leaves were worn off 

 and broken. The leaf itself had an horizontal position, which is common 

 in that kind of leaves, only that the small leaves by their obliquity deflected a 

 little from it: but the conjugations of the small leaves did not at all seem posited 

 across ; though that always obtains in such as botanists call the conjugate. So 

 that the Doctor no longer doubted, but that this leaf was of the compound 

 pennate kind : but of what particular species of plants was hard to determine; 

 because several species of this family have leaves so much resembling each other, 

 that though fresh, it is difficult to distinguish them : add to this, that even the 

 little veins of the small leaves did not appear to the armed eye, as having been 

 obliterated by the amber in its liquid state, and as it were incrustated with it. It 

 nearly resembled securidaca secunda clusii, or coronilla herbacea, &c. Tourne- 



voL. VII. y 



