20, 1 Cole: Identification of Ambergris 107 
tion of the writer. It seems that ambergris often contains “the 
horny gills of a cuttlefish species” ? which serves as food for the 
whale. A careful microscopical examination proved the absence 
of such horny material but led to the finding of occluded frag- 
ments of moss, leaves, and bark, so distributed as to suggest 
inclusion in the formation of the substance rather than foreign 
material gathered up after the lumps were formed. This natu- 
rally indicated a vegetable rather than an animal origin. A 
comparison with the samples of gums and resins at the Bureau 
of Forestry showed the substance to have a close physical resem- 
blance to the latex from Artocarpus elastica? 
Some of the physical and chemical constants of this latex and 
of the supposed ambergris were determined. The results are 
listed in Table 1. The known constants of true ambergris are 
given for comparison. 
From the data given above and the microscopical examination 
we are led to the conclusion that the various samples of “sup- 
posed ambergris” submitted to the Bureau of Science are neither 
-ambergris nor of animal origin, but that they are originally 
derived from a tree probably closely related to Artocarpus elas- 
tica. 
TRUE AMBERGRIS 
Recently a substance found in southern Palawan, near Balabac, 
by a Moro, was submitted to the Bureau of Science for analysis. 
It proved to be true ambergris.‘' The material was of a waxy na- 
ture, brown with tiny specks of white distributed through it, 
and there were also embedded in it ‘many fragments of the 
chitinous part of the internal shell or gladius of a cuttlefish. 
Other chitinous fragments, in the form of a parrot’s beak, and 
the remains of the mandibles of the cuttlefish were also found. 
This chitinous material is probably identical with the “horny 
gills of a cuttlefish species” referred to earlier in this article. 
These fragments appear as thin, dark brown, opaque, finely 
striated pieces of chitin varying in thickness from 0.04 to 0.1 
millimeter. No moss, bark, or other vegetable material was 
found in the sample. 
The specific gravity of the ambergris was 0.834. The melting 
point was 65°C. The ash content was 0.21 per cent. After the 
* Bruff, Chem. Abstr. 10 (1916) 1405. 
* Philippine Resins, Gums, Seed Oils, and Essential Oils, Bull. P. I. Bur. 
Forestry No. 20 (1920) 68. 
‘This lot of ambergris weighed 47 kilograms. 
