THE SPEBM WHALE. 



83 



prising. It opens and shuts its mouth, if need be, in a twinkling, or it throws the 

 lower jaw down to nearly a right angle with its body, or sways it from side to side 

 at an astonishing angle, when we take into consideration the distance between the 

 condyles at their junction with the animal's head. When the creature essays , to 

 grasp a large object on the water, it instantly rolls over to bite ; but does it necessa- 

 rily follow that the same attitude must be maintained when obtaining its food in the 

 abyss beneath? Or is it impossible that this protruding jaw of massive bone and 



the working of the -warm sea doth it, and so it 

 floats on the sea ; there was found by a souldier 

 seven- eighths of a pound, and by the chief two 

 pieces, weighing five pounds. If you plant the 

 trees where the stream sets to the shore, then 

 the stream will cast it up to great advantage ! 

 March 1st, 1G72, in Batavia." {Phil. Trans., vol. 

 viii, p. G133.) 



But notwithstanding the above statement. Doc- 

 tor Thomas Brown, in his work published a few 

 years afterward ( 1G86 ), in his description of a 

 Sperm "Whale which was thrown on the coast of 

 Norfolk, states that "in vain it was to rake for 

 ambergriese in the paunch of this leviathan, as 

 Greenland discoverers, and attests of exjDericuco 

 dictate, that they sometimes swallow great lumps 

 thereof in the sea — insufferable fetor denying that 

 inquiry ; and yet, if as Paracelsus encourageth, 

 ordure makes the best musk, and from the most 

 feted substances may be drawn the most odorif- 

 erous essences, all that had not Vespasian's nose 

 might boldly swear there was a substance for 

 such extractions;" which proves that the doctor 

 still suspected that the ambergris was found in 

 the Sperm Whale, although it was found by 

 this animal floating in the sea, and swallowed 

 by it in "great lumps!" But it was reserved 

 for Doctor Boylston, of Boston, to enlighten 

 mankind upon this important subject, and he 

 therefore claims the discovery of its source in 

 the following manner: "The most learned part 

 of mankind are still at loss about many things 

 even in medical use, and particularly were so 

 in Avhat is called ambergris, until our whale 

 fishermen of Nantucket, in New England, some 

 three or four years past made the discovery. 

 Their account to me is this : Cutting up a 

 spermaceti bull -whale, they found, accidentally, 

 in him, about twenty pounds weight, more or 

 less, of that drug; after which, they and other 

 such fishermen became very curious in searching 



all such whales they killed, and it has been 

 since found in lesser cpiantities in several male 

 whales of that kind, and in no other, and that 

 scarcely in one of a hundred of them. They 

 add further, that it is contained in a cyst or 

 bag, without any inlet or outlet to it, and that 

 they have sometimes found the bag empty and 

 yet entire ; the bag is nowhere to bo found but 

 near the genital parts of the fish. The amber- 

 gris is when first taken out moist, and of an 

 exceedingly strong and oifensive smell." This 

 letter was written to the Koyal Society in 1724. 

 {Phil. Trans., vol. xxxiii, p. 193.) 



In the same year, however, we have another 

 letter from America, written to the Eoyal Society 

 bj^ the Honorable Paul Dudley, F. R. S., who, 

 after telling us that the old Sperm "Whales carry 

 their young ones "on the flukes of their tails, 

 who with their fins clasp about the small, and 

 hold themselves ou," also says, "one of our 

 country doctors tells me that the tooth of this 

 fish ( Sperm W^hale ) shaved or jjowdered, and 

 so infused in liquor, equals the hartshorn, and 

 has been used in the small -pox, and given to 

 lying-in women in case of sickness, with suc- 

 cess! — the quantity is as much as will lie upon 

 an English shilling." Farther on in the same 

 letter ho states, "I meddle not here with the 

 precious ambergris found in this whale, because 

 I design to close the whole with that discovery." 

 And here is his conclusion: "But truth," says 

 he, "is the daughter of time; it is now at 

 length found out, that occultum naturce is an 

 anirnal production, and bred in the body of the 

 Spermaceti W^hale. I doubt not," he continues, 

 ' ' but in i^rocess of time some further particulars 

 may be procured with respect to ambergris, and 

 I shall be proud to transmit them; in the mean 

 time I hope the Society will accept of this first 

 essay, and allow my poor country the honor of 

 discovering, or at least ascertaining, the origin 



