Amber - one of the most beautiful and unusual semi-precious stones. Its appearance throughout centuries was sung by poets and artists, however the smell of this stone is almost not known.
Amber - the semi-precious stone of organic origin representing fossil fossilized pitch of ancient coniferous trees of a verkhnemelovy and paleogenovy era. The sphere of use of this stone is huge, as well as amount of the properties attributed to it. Many people ask a question - whether the smell has amber? In this case the answer is unambiguous. Amber is among chemically inert substances therefore cannot exhale any aroma.
Why many are sure that amber has a smell?
In spite of the fact that amber cannot possess a smell which the person is capable to feel, many claim that this stone after all smells. It can occur for two reasons.
- The person "feels" a smell at the associative level. All who claim that they know an amber smell and even describe it, actually only sound the olfactory associations with this stone (the most frequency of them - the sea coast and wood pitch).
- It is about a fake. The amount of materials of which make false (or artificial) amber - is really huge. Imitations of this semi-precious stone can do of glass, cellulose, epoxy resin, casein and dozens of other substances. It is extremely difficult to inhabitant to distinguish a counterfeit with the naked eye, especially some stones received in the artificial way actually may contain a certain percent of amber. That is why such amber can "smell": in this case it is only about a smell of initial material.
As it is possible to feel an amber smell
In spite of the fact that in usual conditions amber has no smell, there are several situations when the aroma of this stone after all can be felt.
- Amber dust. One of distinctive properties of amber consists in features of its processing. If a stone to begin to prick or saw, it does not form shaving, and will simply break up at strong influence. However at some ways of processing so-called amber dust - the smallest parts of pitch of various fractions is formed. If they collect quite a lot, then the sense of smell of the person is already capable to catch a certain smell.
- One of ways to distinguish the real amber from a hand-made article - its heating. For this purpose it is not obligatory to spoil the whole sample at all, it is enough to put to it, for example, the heated needle, and you will be able already to feel as almost inaudible, but nevertheless characteristic aroma. What can natural amber when heating smell of? Those who made similar experiments call the following smells:
- pitch;
- wood, wood;
- sea, seaweed;
- smoke, aromas.
At the same time artificial amber will have an unpleasant smell of burning even if it is made of natural pitch.