224 Amber. 
an hour. The milk is freely used by all, especially by children, 
although it has a somewhat astringent taste. 
In the order AZoracee, which includes the mulberry and fig, 
there are several species of /icus that are known as cow trees, and 
the milky fluid of which is bland and used as a beverage, although 
in most of the species of the genus the juice is exceedingly acrid. 
Amber.” 
By F. R. KALDENBERG. 
HE only place in which amber has been found in paying 
quantities is in the Baltic Sea, and the vein extends 
from western Russia to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. 
In former years the production of amber depended 
principally upon the storms occurring in the winter 
time, for when the sea was convulsed the amber lying 
on the bottom was thrown up on the shore ; but human enterprise 
stimulated by the demand for the article has changed all this, and for 
the last twenty-five years various engineering appliances have been 
used for getting out the amber in the quickest and cheapest way. 
The most profitable strata have been found in the Courischer 
Haaf, which is located in the vicinity of Memel, and there are 
twenty large dredging boats constantly at work, day and night, for 
eight months in the year. ‘There are large strings of iron pails 
that are constantly dragging along the bottom of the sea, and 
bringing up the sand and what amber there may be in it. This is 
emptied on the deck of the ship, and there it is washed, and the 
amber picked out from among the sand and stone. 
The little village where this industry is carried on is called 
Schwartzort. It is situated on a narrow strip of land that extends 
about ten miles beyond the mainland, and is perhaps a mile wide 
at its widest part. At one time this strip of land was covered 
with a forest, but the wood was sold off by a Prussian king in the 
beginning of this century to the Russians. The land has become 
barren since stripped of its sheltering forest, and now it is nothing 
but a sandy waste; and, were it not for the amber industry, this 
beautiful peninsular would be desolate. About ninety miles 
further west is another little village, called Palmnicken, and here 
the amber is obtained in an entirely different manner. The most 
approved diving apparatus is used, and the divers go out in row- 
boats, each of which is fitted with an air pump. They go down 
into the sea, where some of them remain as long as four or five 
From the Sczentific American. 
