226 ZOOLOGY. 



more extended prosecution of the Sperm Fishery, have 

 satisfactorily solved this problem, and determined that 

 Ambergris is a morbid concretion in the intestines of 

 the Cachalot, deriving its origin either from the stomach 

 or biliary ducts,* and allied in its nature to gall-stones, 

 or to the bezoars of herbivorous animals ; while the 

 masses found floating on the sea are those that have 

 been voided by the whale, or liberated from the dead 

 animal by the process of putrefaction. 



It is not common for the whaler to find Ambergris in 

 the Cachalots he destroys ; nor does he, indeed, make a 

 very rigid scrutiny of the intestines in search of it, 

 unless a suspicion of its presence be excited by some 

 marked peculiarity in the whale, as a torpid and sickly 

 appearance, and the animal failing to void liquid excre- 

 ment, as is usual with healthy whales, when alarmed by 

 the sudden approach of the boats or struck by the har- 

 poon. Some years ago the whale-ship Mary, of London, 

 discovered a dead Cachalot floating on the ocean, and 

 as there were no injuries on its body to account for 

 death, that event was attributed to disease ; conse- 

 quently, the whale was strictly searched for Ambergris, 

 and the captors were gratified by finding a very large 

 quantity of that valuable drug impacted in its bowels. 



Concretions of Ambergris are either black, gray, yel- 

 low, or ash-colour mottled with yellow and black. They 

 occur of various sizes, and their maximum weight would 

 appear to be thirty or forty pounds ; but it is recorded 



bees' wax, and is formed from the honey-combs that fall into the sea 

 from the rocks where the bees had formed their nests. In support of 

 this extraordinary hypothesis he advances many very specious proofs. 



* The fact, that ambergris has almost invariably the beaks of cuttle- 

 fish imbedded in its substance, sanctions the opinion that the chief in- 

 crease, if not the origin, of this concretion occurs in the alimentary 

 canal. 



