Amber
3 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Amber. All 3 are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a fossil resin. It is found in greatest abundance on the shores of the Baltic, where mines are worked to a depth of one hundred feet. Lumps of amber are found in a stratum of material, half wood and half coal. After storms the shores are searched for pieces which may have been cast up by the waves. Small specimens have been found in the sands of New Jersey and in the soft coal beds of western America. Amber is of a pale yellow color, usually nearly transparent. It is considered to be the resinous gum exuded by certain extinct pine trees. Several hundred different kinds of insects have been found inclosed in amber, as well as leaves and fragments of many plants. Amber is highly prized, particularly for the mouthpieces of pipes. Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Persia pay high prices for genuine amber. A fine specimen is worth its weight in coin. The Cabinet of Berlin has a mass of eighteen pounds, valued at $30,000. Recent explorers of the lakes of Switzerland have discovered pieces of amber in the ruins of the old lake dwellings , showing that commerce in amber is of ancient date. The Romans admired amber ornaments. They thought amber beads a charm against poison and the baleful influence of sorcery and witchcraft. Frictional electricity was first noted in connection with amber. See Kauri
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
as a mineral, called also succinite, from Latin succinum amber. Its color is generally yellow, but sometimes reddish, brownish, or whitish and clouded. It is resinous in luster, always translucent, and sometimes transparent. It is brittle, and yields easily to the knife. It fuses at 287° C. It is also combustible, burning readily with a yellow flame, and emitting an agreeable odor. It is also highly electrical, so much so that electricity is derived from the Greek word It is elektros amber. elektron, or und in Europe, Asia, and America. It found is valued as a gem. Pliny was correct when he considered it to be an exudation from trees of the pine family, like gum from the cherry, and resin from the ordinary pine. Its ermined. Of exact age is as yet undetermined. 163 species of plants found in it, 30 still exist. Eight hundred species of insects have also been met with in it, with remains of animals of other classes. In Scripture, the word amber, Hebrew chasmal (Ezek. i: 4, 27; vii: 2), is not AMBOYNA what is now called by the name, but a mixed metal. substance derived
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
One of a number of fossil substances that resemble the resins. It is found along the shores of the Baltic, and occurs in beds of lignite in many localities. With friction it becomes highly electric. It is a mixture of several resinous bodies; it also contains succinic acid. Only one eighth part is, in its natural state, soluble in alcohol; but it dissolves readily after it has been fused, in which state it is used for a varnish, etc. It is composed of carbon 80.5, hydrogen 7.3, oxygen 6.7, ashes (lime, silica, alumina) 3.27. See RESIN.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's admitted in 1921 that amber's "exact age is as yet undetermined"; Baltic amber is now dated to roughly 34-48 million years ago, and the resin's source is no longer confidently the extinct pine of Aiton's account, chemical work having pointed instead toward conifers related to the Japanese umbrella pine. The 800 insect species Collier's counted have grown into thousands, and specimens are now imaged intact by CT and synchrotron scanning rather than merely peered at. The richest material today is Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar, about 99 million years old, which since the 2010s has yielded feathered dinosaur tissue, hatchling birds and even ticks, though the trade in it is entangled with armed conflict. Claims in the early 1990s of DNA recovered from amber, popularised by Jurassic Park, were never replicated and are not accepted; the Baltic amber these entries describe also panelled the Amber Room at Tsarskoye Selo, looted in 1941 and still missing.
Written for this edition, 2026.