Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1883 — The Origin of Amber. [ARTICLE]

The Origin of Amber.

Some very interesting ' researches have recently been made on the flora of the amber-bearing formations of East Prussia by Messrs. Geopert and Menge, In ancient times there must have loeen in thi3 part of Europe a group of conifers comprising specimens from almost all parts of the world. Among the splendid specimens of the California conifer® were the red wood, the sugar pine and the Douglas spruce; and of the examples of the Eastern States were the bald cypress, red cedar, thuya and the Pinus rigida; from the eastern coasts of Asia were the Chilian incense cedar, the parasol fir, the arbor vitse, the glyptostrobus and the thnyopsis; and the Scotch fir, the spruce and the cypress of Europe, and the callitris of Southern Africa. It appears that the deposits of amber' for which the Baltic is noted are the product of generations of these resin-bear-ing trees. "The richest deposits are situated along a strip of coast between Memel and Dantzic, though the real home of amber has been supposed to lie in the bed of the Baltic, between Bornholm and the mainland. It rests upon cretaceous rocks, and consists chiefly of their debris, forming a popular mixture known as blue-earth, which appears to exist tliroughont the province of Samland at a depth of 80 to 100 feet, and to contain an almost inexhaustible supply of amber. Immense quantities o| amber are washed oat. to sea from the coast or brought down by rivulets and east up {tgain during storms or in certain wtnds. —The actual yield by qnarrvmg is 200,000 to 300,000 pounds a year, or five times the quantity estimated to be cast up by the waves on the strip of coast above mentioned. ' Fenelox, in his yeunger days, rigorously and inflexibly condemned all novel reading, not foreseeing that he was to write * Telemaque. *