THE NONMETALLIG MINERALS. 455 



tralia, and near Bathgate in Linlithgowshire, Scotland. The better 

 varieties contain from 70 to 80 per cent of volatile hydrocarbon, 6 to 

 8 per cent of fixed carbon, 7 to 20 per cent of ash, with a little sul- 

 phur and water. The material is used mainly for gas and oil making 

 by distillation, the best qualities yielding from 150 to 160 gallons of 

 crude oil to the ton and about 20,000 feet of gas of 48-candle intensity. 1 

 (Specimen No. 12786, U.S. KM.) 



4. RESINS. 



SUCCINITE; AMBER. The mineral commonly known as amber is a 

 fossil resin consisting of some 78.94 parts of carbon, 10.53 parts of 

 oxygen, and 10.53 parts of hydrogen, together with usually from two 

 to four tenths of a per cent of sulphur. It is not a simple resin, but 

 a compound of four or more hydrocarbons. According to Berzelius, 

 as quoted by Dana, it "consists mainly (85 to 90 per cent) of a resin 

 which resists all solvents, along with two other resins soluble in alcohol 

 and ether, an oil, and 2 to 6 per cent of succinic acid. 



The mineral as found is of a yellow, brownish, or reddish color, 

 frequently clouded, translucent or even transparent, tasteless, becomes 

 negatively electrified by friction, has a hardness of 2 to 2.5, a specific 

 gravity when free from inclosures of 1.096, a conchoidal fracture, 

 and melts at 250 to 500 F. without previous swelling, but boils 

 quietly, giving off dense white fumes with an aromatic odor and very 

 irritating effect on the respiratory organs. 



As above noted, amber is a fossil resin or pitch, an exudation prod- 

 uct principally of the Plnus succinifer, a now extinct variety of pine 

 which lived during the Tertiary period. 



Occurrence. Amber or closely related compounds has been found 

 in varying amounts at numerous widely separated localities, but 

 always under conditions closely resembling one another. The better 

 known localities are the Prussian coast of the Baltic; on the coast of 

 Norfolk, Essex, and Suffolk, England; the coasts of Sweden, Den- 

 mark, and the Russian Baltic provinces; in Galicia, Westphalia, Poland, 

 Moravia, Norway, Switzerland, France, Upper Burma, Sicily (Speci- 

 men No. 61140, U.S.N.M.), Mexico, the United States at Martha's 

 Vineyard and near Trenton and Camden, New Jersey. 



The substance occurs in irregular masses, usually of small size. One 

 of the largest masses on record weighed 18 pounds. This is now in 

 the Berlin Museum. A mass found in the marl pits near Harrison- 

 burg, New Jersey, weighed 64 ounces. This last is presumably not 

 true amber, since it contained no succinic acid, which is now regarded 

 as the essential constituent. 



The amber of commerce comes now, as for the past two thousand 



1 Minerals of New South Wales, by A. Liversidge, p. 145. 



