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Scan 279
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 265. See the scan on archive.org.
1natural product found in many places in small quantities, but it is chiefly by the shores of the Baltic, between Memel and Dantzig, and particularly in the neighbourhood of Koenigsberg, where it is collected in large quantities for purposes of commerce. It is supposed to be an exudation from the buried pines, and is found on and near the sea at these places chiefly after heavy storms, its collection being sometimes a rather dangerous occupation, as the fishermen walk into the sea up to the neck, and, glancing along the surface of the water to detect its presence, fish it up into a kind of sack attached to long poles. When they collect it in this manner they do so in companies, in order to assist each other in case of accident. They also procure it by means of mining in Sicily and Poland, and gather it in the beds of brooks and at the mouths of rivers in Siberia and elsewhere. Pieces are occasionally picked up along the shores of Norfolk, Essex, and Sussex, and it occurs at places inland in Switzerland and France. It has even been found in deposits of the London clay at Kensington, and in the greensand formation in the United States, but this amber yields a varnish pre-eminently unfitted for violins, because of its hardness and want of elasticity, and it was probably never in olden times employed for this purpose. Its rigidity would effectually restrain the free vibration of the instrument, this latter quality being an absolute necessity in a violin. One of the chief reasons for choosing pine for the belly is its elasticity, and it would be curious to find the Cremonese makers—so wise in all other points—employing a varnish which would tend to obstruct the effectual
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