Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/406

 382 AMBER children collect from it pieces of amber of vari- ous sizes, which is delivered by them to the superintendent. This mode of procuring amber is always less laborious and often more produc- tive than digging. In winter, when the sea by the shore is covered with ice, the ice crust is broken through and the seaweed and amber are picked up through the opening. The fishers frequently go out in small boats when the sup- ply near the shore fails, and in this way a large quantity of amber is found, though it is less valuable than that gained by digging. Bag nets are used in fishing for amber, and long spears in drawing large pieces out of the surf. The production in 1869 by digging, fishing, and spearing on the coast of Samland was 700 quintals. The dredging machines at Schwarz- ort on the Cur Flats obtained 795, and the diving at Brusterort, between the Cur and the Fresh Flats, 215; making a total of 1,710 quintals, valued at 700,000 thalers. The diving apparatus used was placed in the Paris exhibi- tion of 1867 by Capt. Kouquayrol Venayrouse, its inventor. Amber is used almost wholly for small ornaments,- as necklaces, and especially for the mouthpieces of pipes. A varnish is also prepared from it, as well as an oil used in medicine, and succinic acid, a useful reagent in chemical investigations, so called from suc- cinum, the Latin word for amber. The largest piece of amber known is one weighing 13Jlbs., in the mineralogical museum at Berlin. The value of the specimens is not at all proportion- ate to their sizes. A piece of a pound weight might sell for $50, while one of 13 Ibs. weight would readily bring $5,000. Amber is of a yellow brownish or whitish brown color, transparent or translucent, and resembles rosin. Its specific gravity is 1 '08. It is nearly as hard as calcareous spar, and is susceptible of a fine polish. When rubbed it becomes neg- atively electrical. Heated to 448 F., it melts, and then takes fire, burning with a yellow fiame, and evolving much black smoke and an agreeable odor. The analyses that have been made of it give proportions of carbon varying from 70 to 80 per cent., hydrogen from 7 to 11, and oxygen from 7 to 8. Its principal ingre- dient is a resin insoluble in alcohol, which forms 80 to 90 per cent, of the whole. With this is found a resin soluble with difficulty in alcohol, and a trace of an odorous volatile oil. The products of its distillation are inflammable gases, water holding succinic and acetic acids and empyreumatic oil in solution (the spirits of amber of old pharmacy), sublimed succinic acid (salt of amber), and an empyreumatic oil (oil of amber). The residue is 12 to 13 per cent, of charcoal. Pieces of amber are often met with containing the remains of insects that have become entangled in the substance when it was of thinner consistency. Their legs and wings are sometimes seen detached from the bodies, as if the insects had struggled hard to disengage themselves from the sticky mass. These insects resemble more those of tropical AMBERG climates than such as are now known in the regions where amber is found. According to Tiische (1860), there have been found in amber 5 species of Crustacea, 33 of myriapoda, and 205 of arachnida; of insects, 24 species of aptera, 60 of hemiptera, 8 of orthoptera, 87 of neurop- tera, and, according to Loew (1864), 850 of dip- tera, the latter chiefly of the proboscidean divi- sion. Leaves of fern plants, and occasionally some mineral substances, are also met with in amber. Loew believes the amber fauna to be a fragment of a larger fauna, and chiefly found in sluggish waters and ponds and in rotting wood. It is not known when the property possessed by amber of attracting light substances when rubbed was first noticed. It is spoken of by Thales of Miletus, Theophrastus, and Pliny. Electricity is excited to such a degree in the processes of working amber into the forms in which it is sold, that the workmen are affected with nervous tremors, and are obliged to change frequently the pieces they handle, that the excited electricity may be dispersed. Amber has recently been discovered in va- rious parts of Courland. It is also found in several other parts of Europe, Asia, and in E. Africa. False amber is sent from India to China, and is sold for nearly the same price as the genuine article. Amber is found at various places in the United States, oc- curring in the greensand formation and in the clays which succeed it, associated with lignite. The principal localities are at Amboy, N. J., at Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard, and at Cape Sable in Maryland. The commerce in amber is divided by its tints, the bright yellow transparent variety being esteemed in Europe, while the clouded whitish yellow is preferred throughout Asia, far more than the other is elsewhere, not alone for jewelry, but for gen- eral decoration of personal utensils. It forms the favorite mouthpiece of the oriental tobacco pipe, from its presumed power of resisting in- fection, the more necessary where it is dis- courteous to wipe a pipe passed from one per- son to another, as much the symbol of amity as the calumet of our Indians. Singular to say, Americans follow the orientals in preferring the whitish mottled variety. Gum copal has been substituted for amber, which it resembles, but it can be distinguished by its enclosing modern insects, while amber holds only extinct varieties ; also by copal burning steadily, while amber has marked scintillation. AMBEKG, a town of Bavaria, formerly capital of the Upper Palatinate, on both sides of the Vila, 85 in. E. of Nuremberg; pop. in 1871, 11,688. It is a neat and well built town, with a great number of churches, schools, colleges, hospitals, and other public buildings, a royal palace, an arsenal manufacturing from 10,000 to 20,000 stand of arms yearly, a salt magazine, manufactures of glass, iron, cotton, tobacco, stoneware, and hats, and important iron mines, yielding about 8,000 tons yearly. In th neigh- borhood of Amberg the rear guard of the