AMBER. 
479 
hazarded to account for it. Some suppose it to be 
a bituminous juice which exudes from the earth, 
and afterwards assumes the consistence in which we 
find it ; others, that if is not a mineral but a vege- 
table substance, which formerly trickled from the 
trunk of some resinous tree and became afterwards 
condensed into a solid form. This conjecture car- 
ries with it a great appearance of probability, as it 
readily accounts for the insects which we find with- 
in the amber, and which may have been entangled 
in the juice while in a fluid state. 
The antient mythologists account for the origin 
of this singular substance without any difficulty. 
They tell us that when Phaeton, for his rash and pre- 
sumptuous conduct, was precipitated from heaven on 
the banks of the Po, his sisters bewailed his death 
so bitterly, that the gods, out of compassion for 
their sorrow, changed them into poplars : these 
poplars still retained all the sensibility of their 
representatives ; they continually wept, but their 
tears were drops of amber. 
