40 
THE NATURAL SCIENCE JOURNAL. 
AN ANCIENT BEAD 
Anna F. Rice. 
Department of fiDineraloQg. 
C. T. MORGAN, Editor. 
One of the most interesting objects in 
my collection of relics, is a large Opal 
bead. It was dug from a Mound in 
Yazoo County, Mississippi, on Septem¬ 
ber 24th, 1890, is blueish-white in color, 
and measures two inches in circumfer¬ 
ence. This bead still retains consider¬ 
able fire; indeed, when held in a good 
light, is really brilliant after its long 
burial of unnumbered years, and as its 
flashes of color come and go, one can 
easily imagine it may have adorned the 
throat of some ‘ ‘ fair lady ” of high rank 
in the olden time. I have beads of other 
materials from the same locality, but 
none as rare and beautiful as this. 
Wollaston, Mass., March 9, ’97. 
Major Baldwin, agent for the Kiowa 
and Comanche Indians, with a number 
of wealthy men from the East, will build 
a $75,000 industrial school for the In¬ 
dians at the foot of Mount Scott, on the 
Wichita Mountains. The Indians will 
contribute $25,000 additional. 
The German government is sending- 
out invitations to an international con¬ 
gress on leprosy, at which Dr. Koch, 
the eminent bacteriologist, will preside. 
Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Russia 
have already intimated their intention of 
being officially represented. The whole 
subject of leprosy and its attendant evils 
will come under consideration of the 
meeting, the aim of which will be to in¬ 
duce the powers of the world to act col¬ 
lectively, if not in the hope of stamping 
out the disease, at any rate of keeping it 
within prescribed limits. 
Owing to the illness of the Editor all matter for this 
department should be sent direct to the Atlantic Scientific 
Bureau, 1036 Acushnet Ave., New Bedford, Mass. 
AMBEE 
(From “ The Production of Precious Stones 
in 1895 ”; extract from the Seventeenth An¬ 
nual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey, 
1895-’96; by special permission of the author, 
George F. Kunz.) 
I nROM the dawn of history, the 
' world’s principal supply of amber 
has come from the southern shore of the 
Baltic, and chiefly from the eastern por¬ 
tion, the Samland Peninsula, between 
the Frische Half and the Kurische Haff, 
a low region of barren sands, which has 
been vividly described as “a strange 
weird land of blowing sand, shifting 
sand dunes, and poverty stricken amber 
hunters.” 
It was first gathered along the shore, 
where it was washed up by the sea after 
storms, and some is still obtained in this 
manner by men who wade into the water 
and gather the pieces from among the 
seaweed, etc., by means of hooks, or 
sometimes dredge for it in boats. The 
amber, as is well known, is the fossil 
resin of a coniferous tree, Pinites succi- 
7iifer^ which grew extensively over the 
now partly-submerged lowland of north¬ 
ern Germany and the Baltic in the earlier 
Tertiary. These ancient forests are now 
represented by lignite, among which the 
resin occurs and from which it is washed 
out by off-shore outcrops. More recently 
the same beds have been worked by min¬ 
ing where they underlie the shore, and of 
late the main supply has been thus ob¬ 
tained from two mines, the Palmnicken 
and the Anna, at Palmnicken and Krax- 
