180 Concerning Amber. [ March, 
Three thousand years ago it was well known among the inhabi- 
tants of Hellas that amber would attract light bodies, and Thales, 
one of the “ seven wise men of Greece,” adduced that circumstance | 
in support of his theory that inanimate objects possessed souls, but 
two and a-half thousand years passed before it was discovered 
that it was this self-same power which, flashing amid the roar of 
thunder, illuminated the wide canopy of Heaven, bound iron to 
iron and directed the silently recurring course of the magnetic 
needle. 
Tamed and baited as we have considered this all-pervading 
element, still, as day by day we are startled by new discoveries, 
and while awaiting the result of investigations which may trans- 
form the night of our great metropolis into. day, are we not as 
puzzled that these problems should have remained so long unsolved 
as astonished at their solution ? 
Americans can complacently pardon the inexplicable fact that 
Dr. Wall, the English scientist, when succeeding in drawing the 
electric spark from amber and hearing the crackling sound accom- 
panying it, compared the two to thunder and lightning, but left 
the discovery of their being identical to our Benjamin Franklin, 
with his kite and key. 
Although nearly two thousand years ago, Pliny wrote that 
amber was the fossil resin of the extinct Conifer, Succinum pinttes, 
to-day the subject presents many unsolved problems, It is true- 
the modern geological column has assigned it an approximate 
geological place, and modern chemistry has given it a formula, 
and its principal scientific value as the source of succinic acid and 
varnis 
A bier review of some established facts in regard to amber as 
also some of the erroneous but popularly received ideas, which, 
if unimportant, still remain uncorrected, will perhaps show that _ 
for a substance ever popular, coveted as a luxury, even ranking as 
a gem, both useful and ornamental, with a name in every language _ 
expressive of its many qualities, it Sei > received the atten? 
tion it deserves. a 
Probably the oldest of these names is bernstein, or its equiva- 
_ lent in the old Teutonic, from its combustibility. Its two Latin — 
names are succinum (juice) and Zincurium. In Persian it is called e : 
kérnbu, or straw robber; in French the trivial name is also zire dé 
— from its a straw ; in Italian, e and as 
