160 



THE SPERMACETI WHALE. 



that exist in the huge raass of tendinous substance of which the head 

 is chiefly composed. When the whale is killed and towed to the ship's 

 side, the head is cut ofl" and affixed to tackles for the purpose of sup- 

 porting it in a convenient position for the extraction of this valuable 

 substance. A large hole is cut in the top of the head, and a number 



Spermaceti AVhale {Cdtodon Macrocephalus). 



of sailors lower their buckets into the cavity and bale out the liquid 

 matter. 



When first exposed to the air it has a clear oily appearance, but af- 

 ter it has been subjected to the action of the atmosphere for a few 

 hours, the spermaceti begins to separate itself from the oil, and in a 

 short time is sufficiently firm to be removed and put into a different 

 vessel. 



The amount of spermaceti which is produced from the head of a 

 single Whale is very large indeed. From a Cachalot that only meas- 

 ured sixty-four feet in length, and was therefore by no means a large 

 one, twenty-four barrels of spermaceti and nearly one hundred barrels 

 of oil were obtained. 



Ambergris, that curious substance whose origin so long baffled the 

 keenest inquirers, and which was formerly only found at rare inter- 

 vals floating on the waves or cast upon the shore, is now often dis- 

 covered within the intestines of the Cachalot, and is supposed to be a 

 morbid secretion peculiar to the animal, and analogous to biliary cal- 

 culi. Fifty pounds weight of this substance have been found in a sin- 

 gle Whale, and on one occasion a single piece of ambergris of the same 

 weight was discovered on the coast of the Bermudas by some sailors, 

 who immediately deserted their ship and escaped to England with 



