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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
BOOK IV
77
less sweet. It varies in odor and while all of it has a pleasant odor and sometimes may smell like myrrh, the white is the best. When we fumigate rooms with shavings of amber during the plague the odor will last for three days. It is rarely soft and although hard it is considerably less so than stone. All is light but the white is the lightest and they use this to make the dice with which our people play. It is worked into a variety of forms. The beads with which we say our prayers are made from it as well as rings, small dishes, small statues and effigies of many things especially of men. Those things made from the white are the most valued today. Once amber was so highly esteemed by the Romans, as Pliny writes, that any small statue of a man made from the reddish brown or deep red ma­terial was of greater value than a living healthy man. Just as we value the whiteness and beauty of our statues the Romans preferred statues of these other colors because of their beauty and transparency. However dice are made only from the white so that they will resemble those made from the bones of animals. When placed on a flame it catches fire readily and burns as do all other genera of bitumen. For this reason the old Prussians who Cornelius Tacitus calls Aestii used it in the place of wood for fires.
Having been warmed by rubbing amber will draw and support feathers, chaff, balls, leaves and other small light substances in the same manner as lodestone attracts iron. Although Theophrastus claims this is not true, it does attract ocimum. It will pick up metal shavings and some writers attribute this power to the lynx. When the fragments of amber that are left over from cutting are set on fire they blaze up in the same fashion as does the powder they use to throw balls from cannons. When a solid piece is rubbed it takes up some heat from the fingers but it will become warmer when rubbed with a rough cloth, a piece of wool, stone, iron or some other hard substance. Recently some gray amber was dug up on the beach near Puceca on this side of the Vistula which, when rubbed with iron, would draw leaves that had fallen to the ground even when held in the hand a distance of two feet above them.
Amber offers a multitude of uses. Fragments are used in the place of incense for fumigating and for clearing fetid or contaminated air. It is used in lamps to make them burn brighter and for a longer time. The African peoples who burn their dead break pieces from the crude material and boil them in oil until they form a solid mass. This is then thrown on the burning pyre. Writers mix fragments with their ink and then warm it. In medicine it has the property of coating and having been drunk stops bleeding no matter where it occurs. It will stop vomiting, flux of the womb, discharge from ulcers, head discharges, and cure tonsilitis and throat irri­tations. It strengthens the viscera and other parts of the body. Since it is sweet smelling it is good for the heart and will stop heart tremors. The fumes of white amber will drive away epilepsy. So much regarding Euro­pean amber.
I shall now take up African amber. Writers are not of one opinion re-
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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