VOL. LXXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3QI 



in the spermaceti whale ; and they are so convinced of this fact, that whenever 

 they hear of a place where ambergris is found, they always conclude that the 

 seas in that part are frequented by this species of whale. It was for this reason 

 that a gentleman at Boston, on hearing several years ago that ambergris was fre- 

 quently found on the coast of Madagascar, immediately proposed a plan for a 

 spermaceti-whale fishery in that part of the world. But the East India Com- 

 pany frustrated the project, by pretending, that as it was in their territory the 

 right of fishery could belong only to them. The plan itself however they never 

 adopted. 



The persons who are employed in the spermaceti whale fishery confine their 

 views to the physeter macrocephalus. They look for ambergris in all the sper- 

 maceti whales they catch, but it seldom happens that they find any. Whenever 

 they hook a spermaceti whale, they observe, that it constantly not only vomits 

 up whatever it has in its stomach, but also generally discharges its faeces at the 

 same time; and if this latter circumstance takes place, they are generally dis- 

 appointed in finding ambergris in its belly. But whenever they discover a sper- 

 maceti whale, male or female, which seems torpid and sickly, they are always 

 pretty sure to find ambergris, as the whale in this state seldom voids its faeces 

 on being hooked. They likewise generally meet with it in the dead spermaceti 

 whales which they sometimes find floating on the sea. It is observed also, that 

 the whale, in which they find ambergris, often has a morbid protuberance, or, 

 as they express it, a kind of gathering in the lower part of its belly, in which, if 

 cut open, ambergris is found. It is observed, that all these whales, in whose 

 bowels ambergris is found, seem not only torpid and sick, but are also con- 

 stantly leaner than others ; so that, if we may judge from the constant union of 

 these two circumstances, it would seem that a larger collection of ambergris in 

 the belly of the whale is a source of disease, and probably sometimes the cause of 

 its death. As soon as they hook a whale of this description, torpid, sickly, 

 emaciated, or one that does not dung on being hooked, they immediately either 

 cut up the abovementioned protuberance, if there be any, or they rip open its 

 bowels from the orifice of the anus, and find the ambergris, sometimes in one 

 sometimes in different lumps of generally from 3 to 12 and more inches in 

 diameter, and from one pound to 20 or 30 pounds in weight, at the distance of 

 2, but most frequently of about 6 or 7 feet from the anus, and never higher up 

 in the intestinal canal, which, according to their description, is, in all probabi- 

 lity, the intestinum coecum, hitherto mistaken for a peculiar bag made by nature 

 for the secretion and collection of this singular substance. That the part they 

 cut open to come at the ambergris is no other than the intestinal canal is cer- 

 tain, because they constantly begin their incision at the anus, and find the 

 cavity every where filled with the faeces of the whale, which from their colour 



