(Succinum), in Natural History, a solid, hard, semipellucid, bituminous substance, of a particular nature, of use in medicine and in several of the arts. It has been called ambra by the Arabians, and πλεξηρα by the Greeks.
Amber has been of great repute in the world from the earliest times. Many years before Christ it was in esteem as a medicine; and Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, A M B
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Thebes, Æschylus, and others, have commended its virtues. In the times of the Romans it was highly esteemed as a gem; and in the luxurious reign of Nero immense quantities of it were brought to Rome, and used for ornamenting works of various kinds.
The most remarkable property of this substance is, that when rubbed it draws or attracts other bodies to it; and this, it is observed, it does even to those substances to which the ancients thought it had an antipathy; as oily bodies, drops of water, human sweat, &c. Add, that by the friction it is brought to yield light pretty copiously in the dark; whence it is reckoned among the native phosphors.
The property which amber possesses of attracting light bodies was very anciently observed. Hence Thales of Miletus, 600 years before Christ, concluded that it was animated. But the first person who expressly mentions this substance is Theophrastus, about the year 300 before Christ. The attractive property of amber is likewise occasionally taken notice of by Pliny and other later naturalists, particularly by Gassendi, Sir Kenelm Digby, and Sir Thomas Browne; but it was generally apprehended that this quality was peculiar to amber and jet, and perhaps agate, till Gilbert published his treatise de Magnet, in the year 1600. From ἡλικτής, the Greek name for amber, is derived the term electricity, which is now very extensively applied, not only to the power of attracting light bodies inherent in amber, but to other similar powers, and their various effects, in whatever bodies they reside, or to whatever bodies they may be communicated.
In amber there have been said to be letters found very well formed; and even Hebrew and Arabic characters. Within some pieces, leaves, insects, &c. have likewise been found included; which seems to indicate either that the amber was originally in a fluid state, or that, having been exposed to the sun, it was softened and rendered susceptible of impressions from the leaves, insects, &c. with which it came in contact. The latter of these suppositions seems the more agreeable to the phenomenon, because insects, &c. are never found in the centre of pieces of amber, but always near the surface. It is observed by the inhabitants of places where amber is produced, that all animals, whether terrestrial, aerial, or aquatic, are extremely fond of it, and that pieces of it are frequently found in their excrements. The bodies of insects found buried in amber are generally viewed with admiration; but many of the most remarkable are to be suspected as counterfeit, the great price at which beautiful specimens of this kind sell having tempted ingenious cheats to introduce animal bodies in such artful manners, into seemingly whole pieces of amber, that it is not easy to detect the fraud.
Of those insects which have been originally inclosed in amber, some are plainly seen to have struggled hard for their liberty, and even to have left their limbs behind them in the attempt; it being no unusual thing to see, in a mass of amber that contains a stout beetle, the animal wanting one, or perhaps two of its legs, and those legs left in different places, nearer that part of the mass from which it has travelled. This also may account for the common accident of finding legs or wings of flies, without the rest of their bodies, in pieces of amber; the insects having, when entangled in the yet soft and viscid matter, escaped, at the expense of leaving those limbs behind them. Drops of clear water are sometimes also preserved in amber. These have doubtless been received into it while soft, and preserved by its hardening round them. Beautiful leaves of a pinnated structure, resembling some of the ferns, or maidenhairs, have been found in some pieces; but these are rare, and the specimens of great value. Mineral substances are also found at times lodged in masses of amber. Some of the pompous collections of the German princes boast of specimens of native gold and silver in masses of amber; but as there are many substances of the marescite, and other kinds, that have all the glittering appearance of gold and silver, it is not to be too hastily concluded that these metals are really lodged in these beds of amber. Iron is found in various shapes immersed in amber; and as it is often seen eroded, and sometimes in the state of vitriol, it is not impossible that copper and the other metals may also be sometimes immersed in it in the same state: hence the bluish and greenish colours frequently found in the recent pieces of amber may be owing, like the particles of the gem colours, to those metals; but as the gems, by their dense texture, always retain their colours, this lighter and more lax bitumen usually loses what it gets of this kind by keeping some time. Small pebbles, grains of sand, and fragments of other stones, are also not unfrequently found immersed in amber.
Naturalists have been greatly divided as to the origin of this substance, and what class of bodies it belongs to; some referring it to the vegetable, others to the mineral, and some even to the animal kingdom. Pliny describes it as a resinous juice, oozing from aged pines and firs (others say from poplars, whole forests of which line the coasts of Sweden), and discharged thence into the sea, where undergoing some alteration, it is thrown, in this form, upon the shores of Prussia, which lie very low. He adds, that it was hence the ancients gave it the denomination succinum, from succus, juice.
Mr Brydone, in his Tour to Sicily and Malta, says that the river Giaretta, formerly celebrated by the poets under the name of Simethus, throws up near its mouth great quantities of amber. He mentions also a kind of artificial amber, not uncommon there, made, as he was told, from copal, but very different from the natural.
According to Hartmann, amber is formed of a bitumen, mixed with vitriol and other salts. But though this were conceded in regard to the fossil amber, many dispute whether the sea amber be so produced. It is however apparent, that all amber is of the same origin, and probably that which is found in the spa has been washed thither out of the cliffs; though Hartmann thinks it very possible that some of it may be formed in the earth under the sea, and be washed up thence. The sea amber is usually finer to the eye than the fossil; but the reason is, that it is divested of the coarse coat with which the other is covered while in the earth.
Upon the whole, it seems generally agreed that amber is a true bitumen of a fossil origin. In the Journal de Physique, however, we find it asserted by Girtanner to be an animal product,—a sort of honey or wax formed by a species of large ant called by Linnaeus formica rufa. These ants, our author informs us, inhabit the old pine forests, where they sometimes form hills about six feet in diameter; and it is generally in these ancient forests, or in places where they have been, that fossil amber is found. This substance is not so hard as that which is taken up on the shores of Prussia, and which is well known to naturalists. It has the consistence of honey, or of half-melted wax, but is of a yellow colour, like common amber: it gives the same product by chemical analysis, and it hardens like the other when it is suffered to remain some time in a solution of common salt. This accounts for the insects that are so often found inclosed in it. Among these insects ants are always the most numerous; which tends further, Girtanner thinks, to the confirmation of his hypothesis. Amber, then, in his opinion, is nothing but a vegetable oil rendered concrete by the acid of ants, just as wax is nothing but an oil hardened by the acid of bees; a fact incontestably proved, we are told, since M. Mertherie has been able to make artificial wax by mixing oil of olives with nitrous acid, and so perfect was the imitation that it could not be distinguished from the natural.
Amber of the finest kind has been found in England. It is frequently thrown on the shores of Yorkshire, and many other places, and found even in our clay-pits. The pits dug for tile-clay, between Tyburn and Kensington gravel-pits, as well as that behind St George's Hospital at Hyde-park corner, have afforded fine specimens.
Poland, Silesia, and Bohemia are famous for the amber which they produce. Considerable quantities of it are also scattered along the shores of the German sea; and in Germany itself it is found on the banks of the rivers as well as in the bowels of the earth. Saxony, Sweden, and many other places in this tract of Europe, abound with it. But the countries lying on the Baltic afford fossil amber in the greatest abundance of all; and of these the most plentiful country is Prussia, and the next is Pomerania.
Junker describes, after Neumann, the Prussian amber mines, which are the richest known. First, at the surface of the earth is found a stratum of sand. Immediately under this sand is a bed of clay, filled with small flints of about an inch diameter each. Under this clay lies a stratum of black earth or turf, filled with fossil wood, half-decomposed and bituminous: this stratum is extended upon a bank of minerals, containing little metal except iron, which are consequently pyrites. Lastly, under this bed the amber is found scattered about in pieces, or sometimes accumulated in heaps.
Amber has a subacid, resinous taste, and fragrant, aromatic smell, especially when dissolved. When boiled in water, it neither softens nor undergoes any sensible alteration. Exposed to the fire in an open vessel, it melts into a black mass very like a bitumen. It is partly soluble in spirit of wine, and likewise in some essential oils; but it is with difficulty that the expressed oils are brought to act upon it. The stronger sorts of fixed alkaline lixivia almost totally dissolve it.
This substance is principally of two colours, white and yellow. The white is the most esteemed for medicinal purposes, as being the most odoriferous, and containing the greatest quantity of volatile salt; though the yellow, on account of its transparency, is most valued by those who manufacture beads and other toys.
Amber is the basis of all varnishes, by solution in the ways described under the article Varnish.
Amber Tree, the English name of a species of Anthospernum.