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Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone

Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone Page of 251 Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
76
DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
cold body of her nude husband with cloths that have been warmed by the fire so that he will not suffer too much from the cold and can go back into the sea refreshed. He goes back again and again until he can find no more material. He must take everything that he finds to an overseer who gives him an equal measure of salt for the amber. This is the only compensation he receives for so much work and such irksome labor yet he is bound to this by old and long established custom. The Sudini are not allowed the liberty of travelling nor are they allowed to conceal amber. When anyone is caught concealing it his civil liberties are taken from him, he is soon brought to trial and hanged from a tree. However, these Germans get as much pleasure from gathering amber as they do from fishing. In any one year with more than a thousand merchants along the Rhine less than ten will sell amber which, having been shaped into various forms, is sold in lots. White amber is the most esteemed today because it has the most pleasing odor, is most efficacious as a remedy and is rarest. The next most prized amber is the transparent reddish yellow and deep red and next the whitish variety which is the pale color of cooked honey. The other amber is of little value. A large piece sells for more than many small pieces of the same weight.
In other localities where amber is found on sea shores it is rarely col­lected in nets. It is either picked up on the dry sand where it has been left by the waves when they have subsided or when the sea is calm. The larger pieces are located with a three pronged fork and dug up from the beach or the sea bottom. It is sometimes found when sand is taken from the shore. Recently amber has been found on the beach near Dantiscus where it has the appearance of having been thrown away and later covered with sand. Obviously Philemon was not entirely wrong when he wrote that this mineral is dug up at two places in Scythia. The regions beyond the Vistula river were called Scythia by some Greek writers among them Xenocrates and Sarmatia by others. Philemon writes that white and wax colored amber is dug up at one place and dark reddish brown in another, but this does not agree with the facts. Actually all colors of amber are found in one and the same place, whitish, wax colored, reddish brown, deep red and that which is the color of cooked honey. Gray amber usually has a crass or cloudy appearance due to the sea salt it has picked up. Reddish brown and deep red are commonly transparent and sometimes contain small flying insects such as flies, gnats, bees and rustic animals such as ants, small red worms, spiders, lizards and vipers according to Martialis. Other inclusions are swimming things such as fish, the parts of small ani­mals such as the wings of flies and fish roe, inanimate substances such as the stalks of plants and leaves with branches, all of which are either picked up by, crawl into or fall into the liquid bitumen when it flows out of the earth or swim into it when it flows down into the sea and once having been included in this manner they are changed into stone along with the amber.
Amber varies in taste. The white is oily sweet while the other colors are
Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone Page of 251 Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone
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