4^8 
AMBER. 
is often so cleverly managed that it is almost impos- 
sible to detect the fraud. 
Amber is rarely found in large pieces : that in 
the cabinet of the king 1 of Prussia is reckoned of an 
extraordinary size, being a foot in diameter, and 
of a lenticular shape. We are told indeed of a 
column of amber six feet high in the gallery of 
Florence, but that must certainly have been formed 
of many pieces cemented together. Among the 
specimens of this mineral deserving of notice, may 
be mentioned those in the hall of the chateau of 
Tzarsco-Celo, near Petersburg, where the wainscot 
was disposed in compartments formed entirely of 
plates of amber of seven or eight inches long. 
This rich decoration was a present from the king of 
Prussia. When Patrin was at Grodno in the 
year 177/? his friend Gilibert, who was then di- 
rector of the Academy, showed him an old Spanish 
rosary, of amber, with an insect in every bead. 
Brydone, in his Travels in Sicily, says, that in the 
mouth of the Giaretta (the antient Simethus), which 
falls into the sea near Catana, the people find a 
considerable quantity of very fine amber, which 
they carry to Catana, where it is worked into 
crosses, rosaries, &c. Several of the pieces, according 
to this traveller, are full of flies and other insects. 
He tells us that the amber from this place is by far 
more electric, and of a much stronger smell, than 
that from the Baltic. 
The origin of amber has always been involved in 
obscurity, and many uncertain opinions have been 
