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72
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DE ΝΑΤURA FOSSILIUM
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in
this belief. Some poets believed that amber was a gum but Pliny has not
written who they might have been nor has he named the tree that, in
their belief, produced this gum. Actually the poplar does not give off
drops or tears but a resin according to the belief of Dioscorides.
Pliny who decided it was a pine tree which produced the juice and
Mithridates who though it was a cedar have left the following
description "for each tree produces resin." There is seen to be
considerable conflict in these statements hence we know one and all to
be false since neither on our shores nor on the opposite shores nor on
the intermediate islands do we find trees on the high cliffs, of which
there are many along the seashores, that drop resin into the sea so
that amber can be formed from it. Amber is usually thrown onto the
shores by waves and storms and since it is soft both outside and inside
it cannot have come from any great distance nor can it have lurked in
the depths of the sea since some ancient time when trees might have
dropped it. Therefore trees do not exude amber.12
Some
say that it is a juice of the earth and they believe that the rays of
the sun, penetrating with great force, bring forth an unctuous sweat
from which amber is produced. Nicias is seen to have been of this
opinion. What juice could be produced by the rays of the sun which are
both hot and dry? Nicias was correct in believing that amber is an
unctuous juice of the earth or, as he called it, a sweat but he is
wrong in believing that it is produced from the earth by the rays of
the sun. Either the intense heat of the earth squeezes out a liquid
from the unctuous earths or, liquifying an already congealed mass,
causes it to flow forth, or waters which moisten and dissolve the
congealed matter bring it forth as a liquid from the veins of the
earth. How could the sun draw out a juice from the frozen regions
toward the north that are turned away from it? Why does it not draw out
this juice from the many hot places that are directly beneath its
course? Certainly the heat is greatest in the latter regions in summer
and only moderately so in the former regions. If the sun is able to
throw such vehement rays on our country that they can liquify
congealed juices they should certainly liquify those juices that have
been exposed to the air but the juice from which amber is made is very
rarely so exposed being almost always buried in the earth where, having
been liquified, it flows out with water. Therefore the rays of the sun
do not produce this juice. Nevertheless Nicias has come closer to the
actual method of origin of amber than any of the other Greeks or
Latins. Even Asarubas and our own writers who say that it is formed
from slime have added something. But neither the latter have explained
what kind of slime it may be nor Nicias what kind of juice. Since amber
is unctuous and inflammable it is obvious that it must be related to
either sulphur or bitumen. The variety of colors shown by bitumen as it
flows from fountains, white, yellow, reddish, black, purplish red and
bluish black indicate that it is more
12 Agricola's logic, based upon his inability to see a tree that produced amber, led him to err.
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