A Dirty-Looking Lump of Ambergris Is
Worth More Than Half Its
Weight in Gold.
Ambergris is one of the most valuable products of the sea. The mariner who
spies floating on the waves a grayish mass, fatty in appearance, will, if
he knows what ambergris is, betray considerable excitement, for the
substance fetches high prices.
Captain James Earle, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, is said to have been
the luckiest of all skippers in the old whaling days. From a single sperm
whale he realized more than a hundred thousand dollars. It was not the
ninety barrels of oil which gave the leviathan its extraordinary value,
for that was sold for something like four thousand dollars; but within the
whale's vast interior there was found a solid piece of ambergris weighing
seven hundred and eighty pounds. This was sold in chunks in all markets of
the world for about one hundred thousand dollars.
The finest piece, if not the largest, obtained in recent years weighed one
hundred and sixty-three pounds. It was sold in London in 1891.
As to what ambergris is, we may quote the Philadelphia _Saturday Evening
post_:
There is no longer any mystery as to the origin of
ambergris. It is a morbid secretion due to a disease of the
liver of the sperm whale, in the intestines of which animal
lumps of it are occasionally, though rarely, discovered. Dr.
C.H. Stevenson, of the United States Fish Commission, who
has made a special study of the subject, says that the
whales which yield ambergris are sickly and emaciated.
Anciently, the substance was known as amber--a name which
was subsequently applied also to the fossil gum now
commonly so called. But, to distinguish the two, one was
called "_amber gris_" (gray), and the other "_amber jaune_"
(yellow).
So it appears that ambergris means simply gray amber. Like
the fossil gum, pieces of it were found now and then on the
seashore, where they had been cast up by the waves; hence,
doubtless, the giving of the same name to both.
The substance has been used for centuries in sacerdotal
rites of the church, and with fragrant gums was formerly
burned in the apartments of royalty. To some extent it was
employed as a medicine and to flavor certain dishes.
Nowadays it is utilized almost exclusively by perfumers, in
the preparation of fine scents, being first converted into a
tincture by dissolving it in alcohol.