74 
A GOSSIP ABOUT AMBER. 
[Nature and Art, March 1, 1807. 
A GOSSIP ABOUT AMBER, 
By B. Lambert. 
A MBER, one of the most beautiful fossil pro- 
ductions of a bygone age, possesses, apart 
from its intrinsic value as an art material, the 
greatest possible interest to the student in the 
sciences of Entomology, Botany, and Geology. 
How was it formed, and whence does it come 1 
are questions which were debated in days long 
anterior to the Christian era. Its translucent aspect 
and wealth of glowing colour have been utilized by 
the bards of every clime in the construction of 
their most charming imagery, whilst on its electric 
characteristic there has been erected a goodly super- 
structure of all-pervading superstition, the trace of 
which may be found in the folk-lore of the Western 
nations. 
The geographical distribution of amber would 
appear to be tolerably extensive, but the largest 
quantity is found on the southern shore of the 
Baltic, between Mem el and Konigsberg, where it 
is cast up by the action of the ground swell after 
northerly gales. Under similar circumstances it is 
found on the coast of the Adriatic, on the Sicilian 
seaboard, and on the beach in our own counties of 
Norfolk and Suffolk. Mining for amber in beds of 
brown lignite is carried, on in Prussia with varying 
success, and good pieces, both as regards size and 
quality, are occasionally found in excavations all 
over Europe, che British islands not excepted. Still, 
amber continues to be, par excellence, the gem of 
the sea, by which it is yielded up in sparing 
manner, and then only when in tempestuous mood. 
The origin of amber has been for ages a fertile 
subject of discussion ; and theories of the wildest 
character- — but on that account not the less beauti- 
ful as imaginative conceptions — have been started to 
account for the singularity of the phenomena by 
which it is surrounded. There can be no doubt, 
however, that amber is the indurated resin of 
extinct Coniferse, and is moreover the product of 
different species of coniferous trees. Judging from 
the variety of objects found impacted in amber, 
the inference is clear that the forests of northern 
Europe were, at the epoch of its production, of a 
very different character to those of the present day. 
A tropical sun must have poured a flood of light 
and heat on luxuriant vegetation instinct with life, 
extending over the present bed of the ice-bound 
Baltic ; and no better sermon in fossils can be read 
than the history of that epoch, as exhibited in the 
plants and insects imbedded in the clear juice rvliich 
flowed from the stems of its forest trees. 
Amber is found in masses, irregularly shaped and, 
generally speaking, of a small size ; the colour varies 
from exceedingly pale straw to deep orange. In 
clearness it is obtained of all degrees, from trans- 
parency to opacity. It is exceedingly light, having 
only a specific gravity of 1-07 ; has a conchoidal 
fracture ; is brittle, but can be easily cut with a 
sharp knife; and becomes negatively electrical by 
friction. Its chemical formula is C 40 H 32 0 4 . By 
distillation it yields succinic acid, that being its 
leading characteristic. It fuses in air at 550° Fahr., 
and does not drop, like copal under similar circum- 
stances, but burns with a yellow flame, leaving 
a shiny bituminous mass, which is used in the arts 
as a basis for varnishes. 
Amber was held in high estimation in periods of 
the most remote antiquity, Its electrical property 
was first commented upon by Thales of Miletus, who 
flourished 600 years B.C. The substance -was on 
that account called by the Greeks electron, a name 
which was, however, equally applied to an amalgam 
composed of gold and silver ; and it is from electron 
that our word electricity is derived. 
Nearly all the Greek and Latin authors have 
something to say about electron. By some it was 
supposed to be produced by the rays of the setting 
sun on the surface of the earth, resulting in an 
“ unctuous sweat,” which was washed off by the sea 
and further elaborated in its depths. By others, 
that a piece of water, called Lake Electron, was 
situated in the gardens of the Hesperides, and that 
amber fell into the water from the poplar trees by 
which its banks were lined; and not a few believed, 
with Sophocles, that amber was the tears shed for 
Meleager by the birds called Meleagrides, in some 
far eastern country. The prevailing idea, however, 
in the first century of the Christian era, was, that 
amber was a vegetable product, distilled from trees 
at one time indigenous to the places where the 
substance was found, — an idea which is elegantly 
elaborated by Ovid in his notice of the death of 
Phaeton. The story is, that the sisters of Phaeton 
being overcome with sorrow for his untimely death, 
wandered over the surface of the earth, loudly 
lamenting their bereavement. Having reached the 
banks of the Po, and one of them desiring to recline, 
the discovery was made that they were gradually 
being transformed into trees ; and as the bark finally 
closed on their heads, tears burst forth — hardened 
in the sun- — dropped into- the river, and were by it 
borne to the Latian matrons ; so that, according to 
Ovid, amber was the tears of the sisters of Phaeton. 
In the Old Testament Scriptures amber is men- 
tioned in the book of Ezekiel ; but the greater num- 
ber of biblical scholars agree that the word does 
not mean amber proper, but a metal similar to, if not 
identical with, that named by the Greeks electron. 
This want of clearness in nomenclature has been 
productive of much confusion, and appears moreover 
to have been very prevalent ; as, for example, in the 
Hindu mythology, where amber and ambergris are 
made interchangeable terms. It is extremely difficult 
to judge whether the ancient Hindus had three 
different substances which they denominated amber, 
or only two. Inclining to the opinion that there were 
