14 ODOROGRAPHIA. 
under certain treatment, evolves an odour of ambergris. The 
early writers were evidently daring experimenters, and had 
stronger stomachs than modern manufacturing perfumers. 
Ambergris is found floating on the sea near the coasts of, and 
thrown up on the shores of, various tropical countries. As it has 
not been found in any whales but such as were dead or sick, its 
production is generally supposed to be owing to disease. Most 
specimens of ambergris, especially the large ones, are found to 
contain embedded in them the beak-like nasal bones of a species 
of sepia, Sepia octopodia or Sepia moschata, which is the common 
food of this whale, and to which food some observers attribute 
the odour of ambergris. 
Ambergris is found in pieces of various size, generally in small 
fragments, but sometimes in pieces so large as to weigh nearly 
200 lbs. The very high price which fine ambergris has lately 
realized on the London market is the best proof of the indis- 
pensability of the drug in the preparation of high-class per- 
fumes. During the past year the price of the best ambergris has 
risen from 180s. to 215s. per oz., at which price it is now 
quoted by wholesale London houses (23 April, 1892). 
The small compass within which a very valuable quantity of the 
drug may be imported without attracting attention, and the ease 
with which the requirements of the Customs regulations, that all 
goods shall be entered under their proper name and at their full 
value, may be circumvented, render it exceedingly difficult to 
follow closely the imports of the drug, where it is advisable to 
keep secret any important consignment of ambergris. It is stated, 
for instance, that although for many months fine ambergris has 
been thought to be exceedingly scarce in our market (and the 
visible supply has in reality been so), there has been a far greater 
supply available than has appeared on the surface, in fact, that a 
piece weighing 136 lbs. has been recently imported from Mel- 
bourne, and that the consignees have, as far as possible, kept the 
matter secret*. The greater part of the ambergris sold in London 
during the last few years has been obtained by the New Zealand 
and Tasmanian whalers, who ply their trade in the Antarctic 
Ocean. Whale-fishing was once an important industry in Tas- 
mania. Now, the Tasmanian industry has practically ceased to 
* Chemist & Druggist, 17 Oct. 1891. 
