( i66 ) 
.an Account of the Ambergris. Many and various 
iiave been the Opinions even of the learned World as 
to die Origin and Nature of this precious Perfume* 
fome have reckoned it a Bitumen, , and to ifluefrom the 
hn rink of the Earth j others, that it was produced from 
fome infed, as Honey, Silk, (Sc. The famous Mr. 
Boyte, as I find it, m the Second Volume of Low- 
thor f s Abridgment of the Tbilofofhical Tran factions 
communicates an Account of Ambergris, from a 
Dutch Merchant, who firfi denies it to be the Scum 
or Excrement of a Whale, and then gives it, as his Opi- 
nion, that it is a fat Gum that iffues from the Root of a 
Tree, and that you may raife it in Quantities by plant- 
ing thofe Trees by the Shore, and fo the Stream will 
call it up to great Ad vantage. But Truth is the Daughter 
of Time ; it is now at Length found out, that this Oc- 
cult urn Nature is an Animal Production, and bred in 
the Body of the Sferma Ceti Whale, analogous to what 
is found in fome Animals of the Land, as the Mufk Hog 
or Taiacu , the Mufk Deer, the Bezoar Sheep, and fome 
Amphibious Animals, as theMufquafh, &c. who have 
their valuable Scent in a particular Cyjlis or Big. I am 
apt to think, that which firfi: gave Occafion to the No- 
tion of Ambergris being the Production of the Whale, 
was becaufe it was found in confiderable Quantities oil 
the Shores of the Summer Iflands, and among the Ba- 
hama’s, where the dead Whales are frequently wreck’d 
and broke up with the Sea, and the Ambergris found 
floating, or on the Shore j but here again, the Ingenious, 
until very lately, were at a Lofs, and divided in Opi- 
nion, for tho’ they agreed it to come from the Whale, 
yet fome took it to be the true and proper Semen. , being 
found only in the Bull, at the Root of the Bents, near 
me Pedicles ^ others again thought it was the Ordure or 
Excrement of the Whale. 
5 
The 
