great Northern Whale or Baliena Myfticetus ; the 

 head being of an enormous magnitude in proportion 

 to the body. The upper jaw is deftitute of teeth : 

 in the lower they are very numerous, and are re- 

 ceived, when the mouth is clofed, into correfpond- 

 ing cavities in the upper. The colour of this whale 

 is a pale or whitifh brown; darkeft above. The 

 fubftance called fpermaceti is contained in peculiar 

 cavities or bony cells in the head, and when recent 

 is nearly liquid, but foon concretes on expofure to 

 air. Ambergreafe is (what perhaps few who are ad- 

 mirers of that perfume would eafily imagine,) no- 

 tliing more than the excrem.ent of the animal in a 

 difeafed ftate. This fpecies of whale, like others, 

 is fometimes caft by tempefts on the European 

 coafts, and has been feen on our own. In the laft 

 century a very large one was ftranded on the coaft 

 of Norfolk, which is particularly commemorated by 

 Sir Thomas Brown, who feems to have been willing 

 to have difcovered ambergreafe in it, but was re- 

 pelled by the intolerable faetor of the animal, which 

 had lain feveral days in a flate of putrefaction. 

 Sir Thomas recites the anecdote in his ufual forcible 

 ftyle, and appears to have been rather in doubt of 

 what is. now well afcertained, viz. that the perfume 

 above mentioned has really the origin before de- 

 fcribed. 



In vain it was to rake for ambergriefe in the 

 panch of this Leviathan, as Greenland difcoverers, 

 and attefts of experience dilate, that they fome- 

 times fwallow great lumps thereof in the fea; in- 



fufferable 



