Amber (it is generally believed) comes slowly drifting along the sea bottom to the Suffolk shore from the Baltic. Lumps as big as one's fist are sometimes picked up here. The largest pieces on record found on the Baltic shore, or dug out of the mines there, are from 12 to 18 lb. in weight, and valued at £1000. A party sent by the Emperor Nero brought back 13,000 lb. of amber from the Baltic shores to Rome. The bottom currents of seas and oceans, such as those which possibly bring amber to our shores, are strangely disposed. The Seigneur of Sark some fifty years ago was shipwrecked in his yacht near the island of Guernsey; he lost, among other things, a well-fastened, strongly-made chest, containing silver plate. It was found a year later in deep water off the coast of Norway and restored to him! In the really deep sea, over 1000 fathoms down, there are well-marked broad currents which may be described as rivers of very cold water (only four degrees or so above freezing-point). They flow along the deep sea bottom and are sharply marked off from the warmer waters above and to the side. Their inhabitants are different from those of the warmer water. They are due to the melting of the polar ice, the cold water so formed sinking at once owing to its greater density below the warmer water of the surface currents. These deep currents originate in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and the determination of their force and direction, as well as of those of other ocean currents, both deep and superficial, such as the warm "Gulf Stream," which starts from the Gulf of Mexico, and the great equatorial currents, is a matter of constant study and observation, in which surveying ships and skilled observers have been employed.
Amber has not only been valued for its beauty of colour--yellow, flame-colour, and even deep red and sometimes blue--for its transparency, its lightness, and the ease with which it can be carved, but also on account of certain magical properties attributed to it. Pliny, the great Roman naturalist of the first century A.D., states that a necklace of amber beads protects the wearer against secret poisoning, sorcery, and the evil eye. It is first mentioned by Homer, and beads of it were worn by prehistoric man. Six hundred years B.C., a Greek observer (Thales) relates that amber when rubbed has the power of attracting light bodies. That observation is the starting-point of our knowledge of electricity, a name derived from the Greek word for amber, "electron." In Latin, amber is called "succinum." By heating in oil or a sand-bath, amber can be melted, and the softened pieces squeezed together to form larger masses. It can also be artificially stained, and cloudy specimens are rendered transparent by heating in an oil-bath.