New-York tribune., 1900-09-08
AMBER.
A BOOK OF FACT AND LEGEND.

rs GEM BY W. t Arnold DID RTqm Tb1rd IIIiTS First
Edition Revised by the Author. Illustrated.
12mo, PIP. xix. 40. 6. P. Putnams Sons.
Gems have always been gatherers of tradition
| and superstition and all sorts of curious lore,
but around none of the highly priced decorations
and adornments that nature has given to man
has there risen strange a lot of speculation,
of poetical imagery of mystery and superstition
as about amber. knowledge of it as a precious
or quasi-precious substance is one of mans
most ancient possessions, yet its real nature and
the facts Of its origin have been known only
within hundred years In the interven-
ing centuries mankind never ceased guessing
and rhapsodizing about 1t. Mr.. w. Arnold Buff
fun is enthusiastic admrer and collector Of
amber, and lover of its lore. and so he has
been able to make most interesting little book
from the fulness of his knowledge, conveying
great amount Of curious information in a
charming manner.
The Greeks, who esteemed amber most highly,
specuated zealously as to its origin. 1t was
long connected in their views with the sun
and, of course, the savans Of modern times
have made it the subject of myths, to join
the innumerabe collection they have amassed
1t was generated directly by the rays of the
sum- 1t the tears of the hero Meeager's
sisters. who were transformed into birds
Moore's
loveliest amber
That ever the sorrowing seabird has wept;
1t grew in the garden of the Hesperides; 1t
was the product of the lynx; 1t was honey
mineralized; it the spawn of whales, dol
phins, seals, elephants or ants according to diff
ferent spectators Many held to its resinous
origin. though they were at variance as to the
tree that produced it and the place where 1t
grew. This agreed with the mvths Of the
Heliades, as Ovid relates 1.-THE sisters of Phse-
thon daughters of the sun, who wept for their
brothers fate and changed into trees,
from whose branches tears continually fell,
that were distilled to amber. This, the
most poetic of all the Greek amber myths,
is the true explanation; FOR, the pres
ent day scientists have determined. amber
is the resin of an extinct pine tree of the lower
Tertiary period, fossilized and transmitted by
ages of submergence beneath the sea into a
gem.
Mr.. Buffum's Investigations into the different
kinds Of amber seem to throw certain amount
Of new light the subject. He tells with
especial zest how he found wonderful neck
lace of Sicilian amber around a peasant girls
neck The gems flashed color shades rang
ing from faint blue to deepest azure, and
from pale rose to the intense red of the pigeon
blood ruby; and although the peasant girl would
not sell her splendid heirloom. he found later
other specimens in Sicily rivalling hers in their
beauty, little known and so different from
the usual attributes Of amber. The yellow
Baltic amber is the best known; the Rumanian
is dark brown, with gold and silver fecks and
blush and greenish tints. The Sicilian gets its
lustrous hues from fluorescence flashing many
colored rays from straw colored body. Much
of the ancient amber appears to be Scilian.
Mr.. Buffum sliced up priceless pieces to get the
fluorescence beneath the dull crust of ages on
the outside, but the absolute silence of ancient
writer's to that island as source of supply
leads to the inference that the Phanician trad
ers who got it kept its existence there secret
The trade in amber is one of the Oldest in the
world, and the intense eagerness of ancient
traders to get it was one of the most potent
stimuli to the development of prmeval COM
merce. The restless Phenicians doubtless
reached the northern seas, the Baltic, and even
further north, in quest of the gem, and they
were shrewd enough to seal the exit of the
Mediterranean to the superstitious Greeks by |
their stories of mysterious perils and nameless |
horrors beyond. But there was an overland |
route, too. to the Baltic the beginnings of which
lost in gray antiquity. 1t is certain that |
amber from the northern shores found its way
to distant lands. to Egypt and Assyria |
passing from hand to hand, and transported by |
caravans and by Phoenician ships.
The great source of present supply according |
to Mr.. Buffum. is the Prussian coast of the |
Baltic. the prolific centre being the peninsula |
Of Samland. where amber kings"-the name |
has sound as If re-echoed from an American |
antitrust campaign-have sunk shafts and |
provided great dredgers diving apparatus and |
other complicated machines strange to the |
simple minded amber kings of ancient Phoenicia |
The precious mineral is elected from obscure |
recesses by the sea. The process is a regular |
one, giving the richest finds after the great No
StO
have traced Its formation and identified the
blue earth, the amber bearing stratum, that ex-
tends out beneath the floor of the ocean and is
constantly nbbled by the waves. Thus the
pieces borne TO the shore mingled with the
ocean wrack, whence the people SCOOP It out