VALUABLE PRODUCTS FROM MAMMALS 3! 



96,600 pounds in 1906, with a value of $4.50 a pound; $200,000,000 

 worth obtained from 1850 to 1902 ; a total of 90,000,000 pounds taken 

 in the nineteenth century, which, at prices ranging early in the twen- 

 tieth century, would have been worth $450,000,000. One bowhead 

 whale will yield as much as 275 barrels of oil and 3000 pounds of 

 baleen, and one right whale will yield up to 130 barrels of oil and 

 1500 pounds of baleen. 26 



After extracting the oil and baleen, the waste of the carcass and 

 skeleton is made into food for cattle, bone-meal and fertilizer, these 

 products ranging from $20 to $40 per ton. 27 Though much more rarely 

 obtained, ambergris is far the most valuable product of the whale, 

 in proportion to its bulk. 



Ambergris is a wax-like substance found at rare intervals, but sometimes in rela- 

 tively large quantities, in the intestine of the sperm whale. With the exception of 

 choice pearls and coral, it is the highest-priced product of the fisheries, selling at 

 upward of $40 per ounce. It has been a valuable object of commerce for hundreds 

 of years. It appears to have been prized first by the Arabians, by whom it was 

 called amber, and by this name it was first known among the Europeans. The 

 name was later extended to the fossilized gum, the two being distinguished by 

 their respective colors as amber gris and amber jaune. In the writings of early 

 travellers to the shores of the Indian Ocean and to southern Asia, references to 

 ambergris are by no means infrequent. Before the time of Marco Polo (1254- 

 1324), Zanzibar was famous for its ambergris. So plentiful was it on the shores 

 of the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the name was 

 given to various islands, capes and mountain peaks of the region. It was also 

 found on certain shores of the Pacific, notably the coast of Japan. From their 

 station in Batavia the Dutch traders kept Europe supplied, and also exported it 

 to Asiatic markets. ... It is now generally conceded that ambergris is generated 

 in either sex of the sperm whale, but far more frequently in the male, and is the 

 result of a diseased state of the animal, caused possibly by a biliary irritation, as 

 the individuals from which it is secured are almost invariably of a sickly appear- 

 ance and sometimes greatly emaciated. It is not of frequent occurrence, many 

 whalemen with half a century's experience never having seen any. The victim 

 of the malady may eject the morbific substance, thus furnishing the lumps which 

 have been found on the shores or floating on the seas frequented by sperm whales. 

 Although ambergris is of such rare occurrence, the sperm whalers always search 

 for it, especially in diseased or emaciated whales. 28 



Ambergris has been used, according to Stevenson, in sacradotal rites 

 of the church, as a flavor in cookery, as a medicine, but chiefly in the 

 manufacture of perfumery. He reports that a 1 82-pound lump in 1893 



28 Stevenson, Whalebone: Its production and utilization, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, 

 Document No. 626, 1907 ; Aquatic products in arts and industries. Rept. U. S. Fish 

 Comm. for 1902, p. 181. National Geographic Magazine, xix, 883-885, 1908. Cram and 

 Stone, American Animals, pp. 16, 18, 1902. 



27 Bower and Aller, Rept. U. S. Fish Comm., App. x, pp. 58-64, 1914. 



28 Stevenson, Aquatic products in arts and industries, Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish and 

 Fisheries for 1902, pp. 177-252. 



