Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1883 — The World’s Supply of Amber. [ARTICLE]

The World’s Supply of Amber.

This appears to be inexhaustible. The “blue earth” of Samland the most important source of supply—extends along the Baltic for sixty miles, and possesses a breadth of about twelve miles and an average thickness of ten feet. Bunge estimates that every twelve cubic feet of this earth contains a pound of amber. This gives a total of some 9,600,000,000 pounds; which, at the present rate of quarrying, is sufficient to last for 30,000 years. Amber is the fossilized gum of trees of past ages, and, on the supposition that these trees had the same resin-producing capacity as the Norway spruce, and that the amber was produced on the spot where it is now found, Geoppert and Menge, in a new German work, estimate that 300 forest generations of 120 years each must have grown on the Samland blue earth to give it its present richness in the product. It is much more probable, however, that the amber came from a large area, and has been collected in its present position by the action of water. It is also probable that the trees were more resinous than the Norway spruce.