VOL. XLIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1 1 



deluge, or by some such violent renversement, and there constitute the proper 

 veins of amber, he also endeavours to make appear, from the same evidence of 

 facts. The substance of which these veins consist has several genuine characteristics 

 of wood still remaining. The texture of this substance is often an undoubted 

 proof of what it has been ; being fibrous, and when dried swims in water, and 

 burns like other wood. The amber is not disposed in these veins in one con- 

 tinued stratum ; but lumps of it are irregularly disseminated through the whole 

 of what he calls the woody mass. 



A difficulty, which naturally offers itself in this place, is attempted to be re- 

 moved : — What proof have we, that this, which is called wood, is not mere fossil 

 wood, the product of creating power, exerted in tiie place where it is now found.? 

 It is answered, that as there are undoubted proofs, that many substances now oc- 

 cur, where they were not originally framed, we are under no greater difficulty in 

 accounting for the change of place in one than the other. It is known, that the 

 exuviae of fishes are sometimes found on the tops of the highest mountains. The 

 bones of large animals are met with at prodigious depths, where nature never 

 formed, nor art conveyed them. Whole woods are found under ground. The 

 cause that effected these, was capable of the other. . 



Yet, allowing these allegations to be just, by what causes is this change pro- 

 duced? It is urged, that time is one of the causes; and that the rest is completed 

 by the acid of the earth, a vitriolic mineral acid. It is proved, from the facts 

 abovementioned, that such an acid is present wherever amber occurs in its proper 

 matrix: that it is sometimes found in the amber itself, in its genuine appearance; 

 that the acid of the salt of amber appears, from experiments, to be vitriolic* 

 That common turpentine, a known vegetable resin, affords, by proper manage- 

 ment with a vitriolic acid, a considerable portion of the same chemical principles 

 that amber does; that those pieces of amber, which have been found soft and im- 

 perfect, are nearly related to a vegetable resin : in short, it is endeavoured to be 

 proved, that we have the ingredients of amber in our power, and that nothing is 

 wanting but a successful application of them to each other ; at least to procure the 

 medicinal preparations of amber at an easy expence. Time and repeated trials 

 may perhaps ripen this beginning, in some person's hands, into a happy usefiil imi- 

 tation of this valuable substance. 



This account is concluded with an inquiry into the medical virtues of amber, and 

 some of its principal preparations. It is observed, that a substance of so firm a 

 texture, as scarcely to yield to any common menstmum, is not likely to produce 

 any considerable effects on the human body; and that indeed there are very few 

 genuine instances recorded of any : that busy imagination might probably at first 



* This is erroneous. I'he acid salt of amber possesses chemical properties distinct from those of 

 the vitriolic acid, and by subsequent chemists has been proved to be a sui generis acid, which has ac- 

 cordingly been denominated succinic acid. 



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