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Amber

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30
GEMS.
VII.
AMBER.
Although amber is not a stone, all writers place it amongst gems, as well for its value as that it has been used ornamentally by almost every nation of the earth, from the remotest period, and anterior to every historical record.
Feuchtwanger asserts that the Phoenicians sailed to the Baltic for the sole purpose of procuring amber there. I am of opinion with Italian archaeologists, that the Tyrrhenians, long before the Phoenicians, had explored those seas, and drawn from the coasts in­credible quantities of amber, with which they made ornaments of every kind and domestic utensils. This is proved by the vases, cups, spindles, and other articles of unknown use, collected by me from the necropoli of the very ancient Pelasgic cities of Italy.
The Tyrrhenians, and afterwards the Phoenicians, exchanged this substance with the Greeks, who named it electrum, ήλεκτρον. Homer says that the Trojan women wore necklaces of amber.
It seems that the electrical phenomena which this material exhibits were observed by the ancients, since Talete, as a result of his observations, came to the conclusion that amber was animated. Philemon and Pliny thought it a fossil ; and the latter person said, " heat resuscitates amber."
Tacitus, having observed that it often contains insects.
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