Bertha Clapper age 11, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for her question:

What is amber made of ?

The story of amber includes Christmas trees, fossils, those thoughtful ancient Greeks, necklaces, varnishes and our word electricity. The history of many golden blown globules of amber began millions of years ago. They were made in ancient forests of conifer trees   the far distant relatives of our Christmas trees,

With the exception of the larches and sequoias, all the conifers contain goo ey resin in their woods, leaves, roots and cones. This pale sticky fluid oozes out to heal the plant when it is wounded. It protects the leaves from drying winds. Its taste is so unpleasant that few animals nibble at the foliage of the conifers. It is very durable and protects even the fallen pine needles for years on the forest floor. It is so king lasting that we use it in varnishes to protect the surface of woods and metals.

Some of this resin given off by the ancient conifer trees has endured for millions of years. It comes to us as globules of glassy amber   pale yellow, golden or brown. Some of it is mined from underground. Some is washed up on the shores of the Baltic seas in Burma and China.

Fine lumps of amber were found on the Aegean shores two or three thousand years ago. It was used to make beads and carved ornaments, and the thoughtful Greeks noticed that the beautiful stones had a magic pulling power. When amber is gently rubbed and placed near lint and bits of paper, these small objects will fly towards it and stick to its surface for a while. The Greeks named the stone with the magic power of attraction "electron". Then through the centuries, more and more was discovered about the magic pulling power of rubbed amber. We discovered how to make, or generate, it in other substances. We put it to work for us and called it electricity for the magic electron stone of the ancient Greeks.

These chunks of amber are actually fossils   the preserved remains of age old plants. Sometimes the sticky resin trapped an insect or plant spore. Insects and plant fragments have been perfectly preserved in tombs of amber through eons of time. For the sticky resin sets in an air tight, water tight mass. No bacteria can invade and decay the little prisoners within. The glassy stone is clear enough for them to be seen in the perfect form in which they lived millions and millions of years ago.