The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-11-20
FLIES IMPRISONED IN AMBER.
Though Thousands of Years Old, the
Insects Are Well Preserved.

OA OAN hDo
Insects Are Well Preserved.
y valuable collection of amber is be-
ing exhibited in London which is at
tracing much attention from both nat
u~ralists and the public. Most people
know that amber, away in the dim ages,
was gum of the most transparent and
liquid kind which oozed from the pines
growing in countries near to what is
the Baltic sea of u day. The trees
decayed and mingled with the soil, but
the resin was stored up by nature and
when, as the centuries rolled on, the
earth began gradually to sink and the
sea washed over what was once dry
land the wood soil was upheaved and
the hard gum carried off by the waves,
to be dropped to the bottom of the
ocean. There the action of the water
in the course of further ages slowly
converted the Jumps of resin into the
fossil, which the ocen currents have
since disturbed and often cast back
on the coasts. 1t was in oozing from
the pine trees that the liquid resin
caught up in its course insects and
other things which have been wonder
fully preserved. Ants and spiders,
lichens and leaves, flowers and fruit
of species and kinds unknown to
recorded history are to be examined
with as much facility as if they stood
on an object glass, and of such a deli
cate consistency was evidently this
trickling gum that the winged insects
have been imprisoned without the
slightest damage to their fragile forms.
The finest specimen in the London
collections contains a fly, very much
like the species which to-day is COM
mon the world over. 1t seems to be
poised in midair, the wings out
stretched in the most natural fashion,
with the light playing on their gauzy
texture and showing them in ever
changing hues. The legs are long and
the fine hairs covering them are plain
" discernible; even the eyes are pre-
served. There are some ten insects in
another piece of amber about an inch
square, including n couple of spiders
and an insects looking very much like
a mosquito. Another specimen con-
tains five flies, and, while it is evident,
from the peaceful attitude of four of
them, that the overwhelming process
was Immediately effectual, one appears
to have given a last kick and that death
struggle of an honest insect many thou
sands of years ago is plainly recorded
to-day in the disturbed appearance of
the foss;led gum. Another small block
holds n spider of quite ferocious aspect
and his eager attitude would almost
suggest that he was already on the
track of n victim when death over
whelmed him instead. Imprisoned in
yet another piece Is a spider which ap-
pears to have died in the act of carry
ing to a safe place its white sack of
eggs. Feathers of birds, the wood Of
extinct trees, the hairs of mammalia.
lizards and scorpions are also found
in amber, and sc fine and thin must
have been the gum in its original state
that in flowing it took casts of most
beautiful and microscopic forms and Of
plants and leaves of trees long since
passed away.
In cutting the amber containing in
sects the great object is to clear away
the stone so as to leave the imprisoned
specimens as near the surface as posi-.
Bile. Much care and skill is required in
the task, for if the cut is made too deep
and the air reaches the insects it i'm
mediately disappears in minute par.
ticles OF dust.-Pittsburgh Dispatch.