substance. Besides the writers in ancient
and mediæval times, modern Russians and
Germans have lately written about amber.
Some wish to know whence amber was first
obtained; others inquire by what route it first
reached the countries bordering the Mediterranean;
some occupy dozens of pages in discussing
the whereabout of Pliny's "Amber Islands."

There is no reason whatever why Mary
Schweidler should not have picked up the two
great pieces of amber in the place alleged; for
she lived on the very coast whence amber is
principally obtained. There are amber-
diggings and amber fisheries; both are near
the sea margin, and both are attributed to
the same cause. Amber, in truth, is believed
to have flowed from pine trees, subjected to
the action of subterranean heat; to have
gradually solidified; to have become mixed with
charred wood and other small fragmentary
matters; to have been driven by storms to the
shores of the Baltic, and to have been
there buried gradually deeper and deeper
in the sand. These pieces are frequently
washed ashore; and they are sometimes
buried at a considerable depth. At the
village of Stürmen amber was first
accidentally found in a field while being ploughed;
and thenceforward a regular process of mining
was adopted for its extraction. After
digging through quartz, sand, blue loam,
and grey sandstone, the miners found splintered
pieces of amber among the stone;
but the real amber stratum appeared to be
a dark grey rich earth mixed with peat.
There are amber mines at the Prussian villages
of Neu Kuhren, Rauschen, Brüsterort,
Lapöhnen, and other places. The miners dig
away the useless soil and rock until they
come to the precious substance; and a small
number of them, under very close supervision,
pick out the amber very carefully with small
tools, avoiding so far as is possible the fracture
of any of the pieces. The bed or stratum
containing the amber is seldom more than two to
three feet in thickness.

So much for the amber mining. The amber
fishing is generally carried on after a storm.
Men wade out into the sea, provided with
open-mouthed nets; they gather the seaweed
which floats upon the water; they bring it to
shore and spread it out on the sands; and
then women and children carefully turn over
the weed, and pick out bits of amber therefrom.
Sometimes the men go out further from land,
and scrape up bits of amber from the sea-
bottom; being clothed in dresses of leather,
they care not about the ducking; but they
are sometimes in danger from the violence
of the waves. Besides the amber mining and
the amber fishing, there is a third method,
which may be called amber gathering, more
dangerous than either of the other two;
the men arm themselves with iron hooks
attached to long poles, and go in boats to
explore the precipitous cliffs of the coast;
these they carefully examine by detaching
loose masses with their hooks; but it happens
not unfrequently that the boats are dashed
against the cliffs, or that large masses of loose
rubble fall upon them, and maim or even kill
the men. The King of Prussia contrives to
obtain a little revenue of from ten to twenty
thousand dollars annually from the amber
which is found on his shores. It is said that at
one time the revenue reached twenty-five
thousand crowns per month.

There were once some excellent bits of
amber picked out of a clay-pit near our own
Hyde Park Corner. Amber has been lately
found on the Norfolk coast. It occurs also
in Saxony, and Poland, and Sicily, and
Siberia, and Greenland; but the great store-
house seems to be the Prussian shore of the
Baltic, from Memel, past Königsberg, to
Dantzig; and thus it is that Frederick William
has more reason to be pleased with amber
than Franz Joseph or any other monarch.
The bits thus obtained vary greatly in size;
large specimens are rare. Mary Schweidler's
two lumps, as big as a man's head, were
decidedly enormous. Like precious stones, the
value of amber increases much more rapidly
than in the ratio of the weight; insomuch
that if one piece be ten times as heavy as
another, it will be worth greatly more than
ten times as much money. A piece weighing
one pound, of fair quality, will readily sell for
ten or fifteen guineas. Some years ago a
piece was found weighing thirteen pounds;
five thousand dollars were offered for it; but
some American merchants stated that its
value for the Constantinopolitan market would
be not less than thirty thousand dollars.
Indeed, large pieces of amber, like large
diamonds and fine pictures, have no definite
price; they are worth whatever a few wealthy
connoisseurs will consent to give for them.
There has been one large mass brought to
light in a curious way. It was found in the
stomach of a slaughtered sheep, and appeared
to be composed of smaller masses which the
animal must have swallowed with its food. It
was a good sound lump nevertheless; for the
heat and juices of the stomach had cemented
the fragments very closely. The largest
piece of amber at present known is in
the Royal Museum at Berlin: it weighs
eighteen pounds. Two pieces, weighing four
and six pounds respectively, were exhibited
in London two or three years ago. The years
eighteen hundred and forty-four and eighteen
hundred and forty-eight are said to have been
especially lucky to the amber finders, the Baltic
storms having thrown up large quantities.

Amber is an obstinate and capricious
substance to work; for it becomes so
hot and so highly electrical while being
mechanically elaborated that it has a tendency
to fly off in fragments. Hence it is necessary
to fashion a number of pieces alternately,
that each may cool after having been worked
up into an excited state. The nodules are
split on a leaden plate at a turning-lathe, and