Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/405

 AMBASSADOR AMBER 381 right breast, and trained by their Amazon mothers to war, hunting, riding, and agricul- ture. The favorite deities of the Amazons were Mars and the Taurian Diana. The Amazons were fabled to have made extensive conquests in the early ages, in Asia, Africa, and Europe, and to have founded several cities in Asia Minor and the islands adjoining it, such as Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, and Paphos. It is a question with ancient writers whether these extraordinary women ever existed. AMBASSADOR, or Embassador, a term general- ly applied to the highest class of diplomatic representatives in foreign countries. In an official sense it designates only those who are accredited by one potentate to another, and who represent the sovereign himself, while ministers plenipotentiary and envoys extraor- dinary, although accredited to the crown, rep- resent only the state, and not the person of its chief. The queen of England, for instance, sends ambassadors to the most influential sov- ereigns, but only a minister plenipotentiary to the United States! The American minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary (the title ambassador being not often used, although it is mentioned in the act of congress of 1856 relating to the diplomatic service) is conse- quently outranked at European courts by the ambassadors of the pettiest sovereign princes. The legates and nuncios of the pope are en- titled to the same social and diplomatic privi- leges as ambassadors. An ambassador may at all times demand a personal interview with the sovereign as a matter of right, while the minister plenipotentiary can only claim an audience as a favor. Ambassadors extraordi- nary are those sent on special missions, and occupy a still more exalted position than those called ordinary, who permanently reside at a court. Ambassadors in the principal non-Chris- tian countries enjoy extra-territorial rights, based upon the fiction that they carry along with them the whole territory of their sover- eign, so that the country represented is deemed to be present in China, Japan, Turkey, &c., as well as its sovereign himself, in the person of the ambassador. The extra-territorial rights of ambassadors and other official representatives of Christian powers in the East are guaran- teed by treaties, and are predicated upon their, jurisdiction over more or less extensive com- munities of their countrymen and over other persons under their protection. AMBER, a hard, light, nearly transparent res- inous substance, found in loose pieces in allu- vial deposits, or scattered along the coast after severe storms. It was regarded' by the ancient Greeks and Romans with superstition, and in mythology was spoken of as the tear drops shed by the sisters of Phaethon, and petrified as they fell into the sea. The electrical phenom- ena first exhibited by this substance (which the Greeks called ^EKTOOV) added to its mys- tery. It was even believed by some of the philosophers to be possessed of a soul. The Arabs, noticing the same phenomena, gave it the name in their language of karabe, catch- chaff. The Romans called it succinum, and the ancient Germans glissum. The ancient trade in amber is described in Sir George Cornewall Lewis's "Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients" (London, 1862). Amber is now generally understood to be a fossilized vegetable gum. The trees from which it exuded stood in forests of past epochs, and are now found forming strata of bituminous wood beneath beds of sand and clay. The wood is more or less impregnated with the amber; and this is also met with depending from the trunks in the form of stalactites, and again in rounded pieces mixed with pyrites and coarse sand under the layer of trees. Such a bed is worked as a mine for the amber near the coast of Prussia. The fossil stratum is from 40 to 50 feet thick, and is followed to the depth of 100 feet below the surface. In other countries it is found in beds of brown coal and of lignite; and it is probable that the pieces of it picked up on the seashores have been washed out from the extension of these reposi- tories beneath the waters of the sea. On the Prussian coast of the Baltic, between Konigs- berg and Memel, amber is more abundant than in any other known locality. From this source the great demand for this material in the Mo- hammedan countries is principally supplied. The trade was first appropriated by the grand masters of the Teutonic order, who often paid by it the whole expense of their court. After it became a royal monopoly it was guarded by most stringent laws ; " strand riders " patrolled the coast, and a peasant concealing or attempt- ing to sell a piece of amber he had found was hanged on one of a range of gallows kept standing in terrorem. Since the beginning of the present century the government monopoly has been farmed out to private contractors. Prosecution for theft may still be instituted against persons who retain pieces of amber they have picked up, and any one passing cer- tain limits of the beach may be punished as a trespasser. The amber is washed ashore in considerable quantities near the village of Stur- men. Not only is it found in the sands on the shore, but also in the interior at a greater or less depth beneath the surface of the earth. At present the chief amber diggings in the north of Prussia are on the N. and W. coasts of Samland, N". E. of Konigsberg. These are worked by an open excavation into the moun- tain near its base, in which the amber-bearing bed is laid bare, sometimes presenting a thick- ness of 2 feet. Exhausted in one place, a new excavation exposes it in another. The fishing and picking of amber from the sea fur- nishes employment to great numbers of people. This is generally undertaken after a storm, when the swell of the waves is moderate. The work- men wade into the sea, and catch in nets the seaweed which is borne in by the waves. This is spread on the shore, where the women and