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CHAPTER X. 
AMBERGRIS® 
Although ambergris, even during the sixteenth century ^ 
appeared to be much valued as a mercantile commodity 
by the English, it is curious that we knew nothing of its 
source, and very little of the use which was made of it 
in other countries. 
In the year 1672 9 we find the Hon. Robert Boyle 
claiming the honour of having discovered its source from 
a manuscript which was found on board a Dutch East 
Indiaman which had fallen into our hands by the chance 
of war. This precious document stated, that “amber- 
greese is not the scum or excrement of the whale, but 
issues out of the root of a tree, which tree, howsoever 
it stands on the land, alwaies shoots forth its roots 
towards the sea, seeking the warmth of it, thereby to 
deliver the fattest gum that comes out of it, which tree 
otherwise by its copious fatness might be burnt and 
destroyed : wherever that fat gum is shot into the sea, 
it is so tough that it is not easily broken from the root, 
unless its own weight and the working of the warm sea 
doth it, and so it floats on the sea ; there was found by a 
souldier -|tlis of a pound, and by the chief two pieces, 
weighing five pounds. If you plant the trees where the 
