Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1890-10-03
AMBER, CRYSTAL, PEARLS.
SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT
THREE CURIOUS SUBSTANCES.
Insects Encased in Amber-A Re
markable Discovery of Crystal
/ How Cinnamon Produce Pearls.

Insects Encased in Amber-A Re
markable Discovery Of Crystal
How Cinnamon Produce Pearls.
Gambler is curious stuff, said col.
lector cf curios the other day. SIT is
only comparatively recently that its ma
ture has been known, and even at this
day very few people seem to have any
notion as to what it is in reality. The
ancients regarded it as altogether mystic
rious and even magical. They found that
it was rendered electrical by friction so
as to attract light substances, and our
word electricity comes from the Greek
name for amber, which was 'electron.
A favorite puzzle with them was how the
insects so frequently found in amber
came to be so situated. / have myself
seen chunk of very transparent amber
in which a small lizard with five legs
was encased, looking as if it might have
been alive yesterday, though,
doubtless, it had been dead for
thousands of years. The mystery
regarding this sort of phenomenon is
easily enough explained when it is un-
derstood that amber is actually the fos-
sill gum of an extinct kind of cone-bear-
ing tree. In the process of hardening it
imprisoned the flies and other creatures
preserved in the chunks of it that are
found to-day. 1t is discovered plenti-
fully by digging in certain parts of the
great plains of North Germany, where
the strange tree once fourished. 1t is
also found in considerable quantities
along the shores of the Baltic, in the
yellow sand stone. At Palmicken, in
East Prussia, it is dug in regular mines;
elsewhere it is picked from cliffs, and a
good deal of it is gathered in the shape
of nodules cast up by the waves. The
finest specimen of amber in Europe is
cup made of that material now at the
Brighton Museum, England. 1t was
found at Hove some years ago, together
with weapons and utensils of stone and
bronze, so it is evidently very ancient,
indeed. In the fourteenth century, and
before amber was made into knives and
forks with one prong, which were used
by princes and church dignitaries, it
was more valuable than gold then. Now
it is worth from 50 to $50 a pound, ac-
cording to its quaSty. The most i'm
portant use made of it is for meerschaum
and other pipes. Meerschaum, by the
way, is material dug out of the earth
in Turkey; it comes in boxes holding
fifty pounds and valued at from 500 to
$500. The dust and chips obtained
from it in the process of manufacture are
worked in pipes, this material being
called limitation meerschaum.' Amber
dust is melted, and the product is what
is sold as 'amberine.'"
"What a very beautiful sphere of
crystal this isl" said the newspaper man,
taking in his hand a cool globe that
looked like huge dewdrop, which the
collector handed him for examination.
eyes, that is a pretty specimen. I
suppose you are aware of the theory en-
tertained by the ancients regarding such
rock crystal. They thought it was ac-
tually ice frozen to great density by dura-
tion of time, CONCEALED beyond liquida-
ton. 'Krystallos' in Greek means 'ice. ,
The famous writer on natural philosophy,
Pliny, who wrote more facts that were
not true than ever any man collected to-
gether before or since, says the crystal is
undoubtedly water frozen by cold SO in
tense that nothing can melt it again.
Roman ladies of that time were accus-
toned to carry such spheres as this one
in their hands during hot weather for
GOODNESS. 1t was the thing, also, to have
the material worked into wine jugs and
other vessels. Nero had two drinking
cups of crystal worth $4,000 each, and a
crystal ladle also; but when he learned
that he had lost his kingdom he broke
them, lest they fall into the hands CT any
one else. A crystal lens was employed
in Rome to kindle the sacred vestal fire.
Great care was taken not to put the crys-
tai ware in warm place for fear that it
would melt. The most remarkable dis
covery of crystal ON record was made in
1867 above the Tiefen glacier by party
of tourists, single cave in the granite
yielding 1000 crystals of from fifty to
100 pounds weight"
"And what is this?''
"That," replied the collector, s.is a
NhiAhucAFO OhihCSO BOu, CONcTcu Will
coat of pearl by real pearl oyster. On
such parts of the coast of the Flowery
Kingdom as produce pearl oysters reg
ular business is often made of manufac-
turing pearls articficially by introducing
into the shells of the live oysters foreign
objects of various kinds. You doubtless
know that the pearl is morbid symptom
in the bivalve. A grain of sand or some
such substance getting into the oyster
produces irritation, and the animal pro-
tects itself by covering the Objectionable
particle with coating after coating of its
own pearly secretion. The interruption
of light by the successive coats of which
the pearl is formed in this way gives it
its beautiful lustre. Taking advantage
of this habit of the pearl oyster the in
genious Chinaman prizes it gently open
and puts in whatever he likes, maybe a
little figure of a god like this. The oys-
ter goes to work and covers it with
pearl, until after few months the idol is
a pearl idol. 1t is worth mentioning in
cidentally that sharks are by no means