The New Student's Reference Work/Amber

Am'ber is a hard, brittle, yellow substance. It is found in large and small pieces; the largest are in the museum at Berlin, weighing eighteen pounds. It is found mostly clinging to seaweed along the shores of the Baltic Sea, where divers dive for it and dredgers throw it up on the shore for women and children to gather and pick over. Some is found in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland. When amber is rubbed, it develops electricity, and attracts light substances. This quality very much astonished the ancients, and they gave it the name "electron," from which we have the word "electricity." It is used mostly for beads, ornaments and mouthpieces for tobacco pipes, though large amber dishes have been found, showing that people long ago used it for manufacturing. The ancients valued amber highly, both as ornament and charm, amber necklaces being worn in the belief that the wearer would thereby be protected from witches, poisons and other evil.