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Amber: Varieties
Besides succinite, which is the common variety of European amber, the following varieties also occur:
- Gedanite, or brittle amber, closely resembling succinite, but much more brittle, not quite so hard, with a lower melting point and containing no succinic acid. It is often covered with a white powder easily removed by wiping. The name comes from Gedanum, the Latin name of Gdańsk at the Baltic Sea.
- Stantienite, a brittle, deep brownish-black resin, destitute of succinic acid.
- Beckerite, a rare amber in earthy-brown nodules, almost opaque, said to be related in properties to gutta-percha.
- Glessite, a nearly opaque brown resin, with numerous microscopic cavities and dusty enclosures, named from glesum, an old name for amber.
- Krantzite, a soft amber-like resin, found in the lignites of Saxony.
- Allingite, a fossil resin allied to succinite, from Switzerland.
- Roumanite, or Romanian amber, a dark reddish resin, occurring with lignite in Tertiary deposits. The nodules are penetrated by cracks, but the material can be worked on the lathe. Sulphur is present to the extent of more than 1%, whence the smell of sulphuretted hydrogen when the resin is heated. According to Gheorghe Murgoci the Romanian amber is true succinite.
- Simetite, or Sicilian amber, takes its name from the river Simeto or Giaretta. It occurs in Miocene deposits and is also found washed up by the sea near Catania. This beautiful material presents a great diversity of tints, but a rich hyacinth red is common. It is remarkable for its fluorescence, which in the opinion of some authorities adds to its beauty. Amber is also found in many localities in Emilia, especially near the sulphur-mines of Cesena. It has been conjectured that the ancient Etruscan ornaments in amber were wrought in the Italian material, but it seems that amber from the Baltic reached the Etruscans at Hatria. It has even been supposed that amber passed from Sicily to northern Europe in early times - a supposition said to receive some support from the fact that much of the amber dug up in Denmark is red; but it must not be forgotten that reddish amber is found also on the Baltic, though not being fashionable it is used rather for varnish-making than for ornaments. Moreover, yellow amber after long burial is apt to acquire a reddish colour. The amber of Sicily seems not to have been recognized in ancient times, for it is not mentioned by local authorities like Diodorus Siculus.
- Burmite is the name under which the Burmese amber is now described. Until the British occupation of Burma but little was known as to its occurrence, though it had been worked for centuries and was highly valued by the natives and by the Chinese. It is found in fiat rolled pieces, irregularly distributed through a blue clay probably of Miocene age. It occurs in the Hukawng valley, in the Nangotaimaw hills, where it is irregularly worked in shallow pits. The mines were visited some years ago by Dr Fritz Noetling, and the mineral has been described by Dr Otto Helm. The Burmese amber is yellow or reddish, some being of ruby tint, and like the Sicilian amber it is fluorescent. Burmite and simetite agree also in being destitute of succinic acid. Most of the Burmese amber is worked at Mandalay into rosary-beads and ear-cylinders.
Many other fossil resins more or less allied to amber have been described. Schraufite is a reddish resin from the Carpathian sandstone, and it occurs with Jet (lignite) in the Cretaceous rocks of the Lebanon; ambrite is a resin found in many of the coals of New Zealand; retinite occurs in the lignite of Bovey Tracey in Devonshire and elsewhere; whilst copaline has been found in the London clay of Highgate in North London. Chemawinite or cedarite is an amber-like resin from the Saskatchewan river in Canada.
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