Nature and Art, Match 1, 18C7 ] 
A GOSSIP ABOUT AMBER. 
77 
belief in amber-power lias not been without its 
uses. 
As already observed, the origin of amber has at 
all times been a bone of contention among the 
learned. The substance has been examined and 
re-examined under every conceivable light. Its 
chemical constitution has been ascertained, its 
mechanical structure and optical properties observed, 
and the organic remains preserved in its embrace 
have been closely scrutinized, with the sole result 
that the balance of testimony is in favour of its 
being an exuded vegetable juice, and that its 
recognition is surrounded with difficulties. ' Baron 
Liebig is of opinion, or rather he thinks it probable, 
“ that amber is a product of the decay of wax, or 
of some other substance allied to the fats or fixed 
oils,” basing his assertion on the presence of succinic 
acid, that being one of the products of the oxidation 
of stearic and margaric acids ; and Berzelius asserts 
that there are two resins in the constitution of 
amber. Sir David Brewster says that his obser- 
vations on the optical properties and mechanical 
condition of amber, by means of polarized light, 
“ appear to establish beyond a doubt, that amber is 
an indurated vegetable juice, and that the traces of 
a regular structure indicated by its action upon 
polarized light are not the effect of the ordinary 
laws of crystallization, by which mellite has been 
formed, but are produced by the same causes which 
influence the mechanical condition of gum-arabic, 
and other gums which are known to be formed by 
the successive deposition and induration of vegetable 
fluids.” The evidence on which it is assumed that 
amber is a vegetable resin, analogous in its formation 
to gum-arabic, &c., is cumulative, as, apart from the 
wood, leaves, flowers, and fruit found enclosed in 
amber, and recognized as having belonged to 
coniferous trees now extinct, the substance has 
been found impacted in the wood which has been 
placed by microscopists as a Pinus. The forms of 
the lumps, now as tears, then as stalactites, and 
generally in pieces of irregular mould, as if the 
juice had been run into bark-crevices, exactly tally 
with our experience of exuded resins. The 
structure of the cylindrical specimens tells of the 
successive flowings of a limpid juice over a partially 
indurated surface, and the perfect state in which 
the delicate wing-tracery of insects is preserved, 
seems to point to their having been enveloped in a 
cold limpid fluid, and not in a hot viscous mass 
such as amber would have been if the product of 
vegetable remains acted upon by terrene heat. 
There must have been several descriptions of amber 
trees, to which the differences which have been 
observed in density and colour are referable. The 
colour of Sicilian amber is generally deeper than 
that from the Baltic, and it is stated that in 
Germany an experienced amber-worker can dis- 
criminate between pieces found on different parts 
of the coast. Nor is amber invariably found in a 
hard state, as there is an instance on record of a 
gentleman having received from a friend located on 
the Baltic coast, a piece -so soft as to take an im- 
pression of his seal ; and the same individual speaks 
of another piece soft on one side and hard on the 
other. The principal argument in support of the 
theory that amber is an organic distillate from 
vegetable remains, resulting from subterranean or 
solar heat, is the largeness of many pieces, which, 
beyond all question, remain in their original con- 
dition ; the inference being that their size precludes 
their acceptation as an exuded resin from a living 
tree. ‘It being, however, admitted that our know- 
ledge of the amber trees is of the most incomplete 
character, and there being nothing improbable in the 
supposition that the forests of that remote epoch 
were tenanted by gigantic forms, the argument is 
more specious than real. On the contrary, what 
lends most weight to the pitch theory, is the 
peculiar appearance which some specimens present, 
as if they had at one time been in a state of fluidity, 
during which the heavier particles had gravitated, 
leaving the upper section perfectly clear. Thus, one 
section of a lump may consist of fatty or mottled 
amber, almost or entirely opaque, while the other 
section may be composed of the purest material, as 
regards colour and transparency; the two sections 
have an appearance of perfect homogeneity, and the 
deposition of the fatty part seems to be marked by 
wave-lines, as if the mass had been subjected to 
strong air-currents when in a fluid state. A ppearances 
such as those just described are obviously antago- 
nistic to the theory of gradual exudation, and can 
only be reconciled with it on the hypothesis that 
the flow of clear resin had been intercepted by 
some foreign body, such as a spider’s web, and 
that the fatty or mottled appearance is due to the 
incorporation of such foreign body with the clear 
vegetable juice. In many specimens possessing this 
duplex character, there is evidence of structure in 
the fatty part, a circumstance which invests the web 
theory with some amount of probability. 
The observation of succinic or amber insects has 
been diligently attended to by many eminent ento- 
mologists, and several interesting collections have 
been made by those curious in such matters. The 
beautiful state of preservation in which some speci- 
mens are found, extending even to the retention of 
the natural colours, has enlisted the curiosity of 
thousands of persons totally unconnected with the 
pursuit of science, persons who could give no 
better reason for the indefatigable manner in which 
they hunt after rare examples, than those contained 
in Pope’s well-known lines 
Pretty ! in amber to observe the forms 
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grub, or worms ! 
The things we know are neither rich nor rare, 
But wonder how the d — 1 they got there. 
Concerning how they got there something has 
already been said, and as far as the rarity of succinic 
insects is concerned, Pope was unquestionably, 
wrong, as they open to us a new chapter in old- 
world history. The beauty of the envelope pre- 
sents to us, in all the vividness of life, the insects, 
the beetles, and the lizards which swarmed in the 
primeval woods ; whilst the completeness of the 
collection renders their acquisition a matter of the 
greatest moment to the comparative entomologist ; 
