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Show Prehistoric Mosquitoes in Amber H NEARBY States have long suffered the opprobrium of producing iarge crops of vicious mosquitoes, but happily that notoriety Is diminishing through the use. of modern methods for their esterqiination. If the iniproreme.it continues there is ground for believing . that It will h'e necessary to visit a museum to find out what the Insects locked like. I lo re are specimens Still to be found, how-er. how-er. and some were recently discovered in a very unusual manner In New York, on the nost famous street in the world. Is a Curio shop where among other atrange things sold as souvenirs are small pieces of amber cut into squares and rectangles of different thicknesses nnd suggesting diminutive blocks of brown sugai The odd feature ahout these little pieces ot amber Is that each one contains an Inject, In-ject, preserved In the amber and so nicely displayed that It Is almost uncanny to sec them delicately poised in the glassy, translucent trans-lucent material. Every one known in a general way that amber is a rosin found In the ground of IBf Jhm2 wir.ous localities bordering tiie Baltic Sea C I Perhaps it is not so well known that Its aBiLfiSl n was similar to the gum that exude "flf ' from cherry' trees, but- amler belongs to a aa3RI bygone ago and the trees that produced It St. disappeared long ago. The vegetable origin rM Is proved by its being found with coal, or ft jfS fossil wood, and also by the insects found f In it. A In some of the specimens insects with J wings and legs separated from the bodies HUxiS a W uld seem to Indicate their struggles to free HSw 3 themselves from the then vlscoufs fluid. As bF4 more gum exuded the insects would l,rAm completely encased, und as such gums aro LBl'-s- aromatic and therefore preservative against aki'' decay, trees, gum and 'nsects have become LKLiJ buried in the earth by convulsions of naturo bBsbbkW and fossilized in time by re,, logical proceacs. bLVH The specimens of prchlstorn mosquitoes thus Ll 'tpTl preserved bear a striking resemblance to UM ) those of to-dav BfVS Amber was known 'o (be ancients, who aBE&x;S early discovered Its electricul properties: in LhbSU iact. they named it electron. Whence, our B" ' f word electricity. |