700 MARINE PRODUCTS OF COMMERCE 



ceived favorably, due perhaps to ill effects of mass production without much pre- 

 vious experience in preparation on shipboard and in the home. 



Norway, during the recent war and afterwards, produced much whale meat 

 from local fisheries, and may have brought some from the Antarctic. In 1947 its 

 domestic production in No. 1 steak meat was 4000 tons. 



Canada produced a small quantity of fresh meat in 1948, but had difficulty 

 marketing it in Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle. Some was flown to distant 

 United States "seafood restaurants" as a novelty meat. The United States pro- 

 duced none. 



The future of whale meat (and that of porpoises and dolphins) in the occiden- 

 tal culture rests on integrating it as an economy food, grading it carefully by 

 selection at the source, and testing its palatability. 



Ambergris. This product results from a morbid digestive process of sperm 

 whales, and is highly valued in perfumes as a fixative for odor. It also contributes 

 a peculiar musky odor of its own. Formerly, it was prized mostly by Moslem 

 peoples as a spice in tea, as an aphrodisiac, votive offering, specific in medicine, etc. 

 Its rarity, unique composition, and fabulous value, imparted by real and imagined 

 properties, make it one of the most famous natural products of the world. Prob- 

 ably more miscellaneous samples are submitted to public and private agencies to 

 be tested for ambergris than for any other single substance, and only one out of 

 hundreds will prove to be real ambergris. All this stems from the most common 

 origin of ambergris, as flotsam and jetsam on the beach where it may be found by 

 anyone. Interest in the search is sustained by an occasional find of ambergris, 

 either in a large chunk or in a multitude of small particles. True ambergris may 

 also be found floating on the surface of the open ocean or lodged in the lower 

 intestines of a dead sperm whale where it originated. 



Ambergris may be soft and waxy to touch or rather hard and friable, depending 

 on its age and dryness. It can usually be kneaded in the fingers, and has the con- 

 sistency of pitch, but is not sticky. In color it is black, gray-white, mottled gray 

 and black, or brown and yellow, or any combination. It sometimes has an internal 

 structure of concentric layers like an onion, and often has fragments of squid 

 beaks or squid "bone." Its odor is fetid when fresh and dark-colored and musky 

 in a sweet earthy way when older, drier, and lighter in color. 



It melts at around 140° F (60° C) and volatilizes as white vapor at 212° F 

 (100° C); is soluble in hot alcohol at 140° F (60° C) or in cold absolute alcohol, 

 ether, and fatty and volatile oils, and the alcohol solution leaves a green-yellow 

 fluorescent rim to the glass; it burns with a pale blue flame and characteristic 

 resinous, musky odor, without leaving bubbles of scum or an ash; it floats in fresh 

 and salt water. 



Analysis indicates that it is a mixture of glyceridic esters (fats) of complex 

 nature, with a waxy ester of the alcohol ambreine having the empirical formula 

 CggH^jjO. It is the ambreine ester which gives it its peculiar properties and odor, 

 though this has also been attributed to benzoic acid. 



Tests for ambergris are: (1) melting point; (2) burning properties; (3) fluores- 

 cent properties of alcohol solution; (4) hot wire test (described below); and 

 (5) microscopic examination which should reveal fragments of the chitinous 

 beak of squid, and perhaps fragments of the calcareous "pen bone" or internal 

 skeleton of certain species. 



