Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 107, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1910 — AMBER FROM THE BALTIC. [ARTICLE]

AMBER FROM THE BALTIC.

How the Searcher* Secure the Predona Gam from the Sea. The poor people who earn a precarious livelihood by gathering ambei on the shores of the Baltic Sea work only In the roughest weather. When the wind blows in from the sea, as It often does with terrific violence, tht bowlders are tossed and tumbled at the bottom, and great quantities of sea wrack are washed up on the beach. This is the harvest of the waders, the Stockholm Times says, for hidden in tho roots and branches of the seawood lumps of the precious gum may be found. In other parts of tne coast divers go crawling on the bottom of the sea for the lumps of amber hidden In seaweed and under rocks. It Is believed that once a great pine forest flourished here, where the great billows roll, and that amber Is the gum exuded from the trees, of which not a vestige remains. The fields are very variable. The largest piece known, weighing eighteen pounds. Is In the Royal museum In Berlin. The usual finds range from lumps as big as a man’s head to particles like grains of sand. The larger pieces are found Jammed In rocks or tangles of marine vegetation. Divers work from four to five hours a day In all seasons, except when the sea is blocked with- ice. The work is so arduous that they are bathed In perspiration even In the coldest weather. For all their grinding toll the natives, are happy in their way and Increase and multiply as In more favored regions of the earth.