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Sucoinum, Amber

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310
NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
rose-oil was a specific for deafness, and with Attic honey for dimness of sight.
The large circumference of some antique bowls of Amber, occasionally discovered, seems to preclude the possibility of their being hollowed out of a single block. It has been ascertained that by boiling pieces of Amber in turpentine they can be so softened as to be kneaded together into a coherent mass, or moulded to any form. Perhaps the malleable glass mentioned by Pliny (xxxvi. 68) and by Petronius (' Trimalchio's Supper ') as a secret discovered in the reign of Tiberius, was some such plastic preparation of Amber made up into vases. Amber was a favourite material for the artists of the Eevival to build up therewith their fairy palaces, designed for jewel-caskets, in which the Florence Galleria is extremely rich. But the master­piece in this line is the French cup, in form a long oval, pinched in towards the middle, 14 inches long, by 7 high, and valued in 1791 at 3000 francs (120/.).
Electrum also denoted a particular alloy of gold. " Wher­ever," says Pliny (xxxiii. 23), " the native gold contains one-fifth of silver, it is called Electrum. This occurs in grains in the gold-washings (Canaliense) : it is also made artificially by the addition of silver ; but if the proportion of the latter exceed one-fifth, the alloy does not stand the hammer. Electrum was anciently held in esteem, as Homer testifies, who makes the palace of Menelaus re­splendent with gold, electrum, silver, and ivoiy (Od. iv. 73)." But çëåêôñïí in this passage of Homer more probably signifies amber, as it certainly does in xv. 460. Sophocles, however, employs the word in the later sense (Antig. 1037),
experiment beyond all possibility of doubt. Its action bere cannot be explained ; but its efficacy as a defence of the tbroat against chills is evidently due to its extreme warmth when in contact with the skin, and the circle of electricity so maintained ; which latter, indeed, may account for its remedial agency in the first case.
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