292 WHALES 



without some mention of ambergris (see Chapter i). The very word has a 

 magic sound and used to conjure up visions of great riches washed up on 

 lonely beaches and bringing unexpected fortune to those who stumbled 

 upon it. In earlier times, ambergris \vas worth its weight in gold, and as 

 the Dutch East India Company once possessed a piece weighing 975 lb., 

 we need not be surprised that sailors the world over dreamt of making 

 similar finds. By 1953, however, when a piece of ambergris weighing 

 918 lb. Avas removed from the gut of a Sperm Whale aboard the Southern 

 Harvester in the Antarctic, prices had dropped considerably. Even so, the 

 world market price is still £j\.o to £70 per lb. since, in spite of the existence 

 of many synthetic substitutes, the high quality scent industry still uses 

 ambergris to a considerable extent. 



The West came to know of ambergris through an Arabian merchant 

 who ventured forth to the islands of the Indian Ocean. On the Andaman 

 Islands he traded iron against ambergris, a product that Orientals had 

 long prized as an aphrodisiac. By the Middle Ages, Europeans, too, had 

 begun to use it in love philtres and also as a cure for dropsy and other 

 diseases. As the demand rose while the supply (whose source remained a 

 mystery) lagged behind, prices rose to giddy heights. Avicenna, the 

 famous medieval philosopher and physician, attributed ambergris to 

 eruptions of submarine volcanoes, and Koblio (1667) thought he recog- 

 nized it as the droppings of a certain seabird. Marco Polo (ca. 1300) who 

 knew that Oriental sailors hunted Sperm Whales for their ambergris, 

 thought that these animals simply swallowed this substance with the rest 

 of their food. It was not until 1724 that Dudley showed that ambergris is 

 formed inside the Sperm Whale, and as late as 1791 the House of Com- 

 mons was so puzzled by this mysterious substance that they summoned 

 Capt. Coffin, the master of a whaler, to explain exactly what ambergris 

 was. 



We do not know what precisely he told his distinguished audience, but 

 then the whole nature of ambergris is shrouded in mystery to this day. It 

 is a waxlike, dark brown or greyish-yellow substance which is as pliable 

 as pitch, though not as sticky. It smells of musk, is highly soluble in organic 

 solvents, and consists of a very complex aliphatic alcohol, ambra'ine, 

 mixed with an oily substance. It often contains chitin or other hard parts 

 of cuttlefish which is not surprising as it is found in the intestine of Sperm 

 Whales. It was formerly believed that ambergris was the result of disease 

 or malnutrition, but Robert Clarke, who was present during the discovery 

 of the enormous piece of ambergris in a Sperm Whale caught by the 

 Southern Harvester (see above), reported that the animal was extremely 

 healthy and well fed. Actually, ambergris may well be comparable to the 

 intestinal stones of otherwise healthy terrestrial mammals. Cows, for 



