CACHALOT TRIBE, 
401 
End, lastly, the cachalot with three fins, and flat 
teeth. All these were indiscriminately termed sper- 
maceti whales, till Mr. Pennant borrowed that 
name from the French, by which they are now 
distinguished. 
From the smallness of its size, as well as its 
fierceness and agility, the capture of the cachalot 
would seldom be attempted by the fishers, were it 
not for the sake of those valuable medicines, sper- 
maceti and ambergris, which these animals have 
been found to contain. The various purposes to 
which these substances are applied, both as drugs 
and articles of luxury, have rendered the cachalot, 
which supplies them, a fish in great request, and 
its capture the most advantageous object in the 
Greenland trade. 
Spermaceti is the name erroneously given to 
that substance which is found in the head of the ca- 
chalot, and which is by no means the semen, but the 
brain of the animal. Goldsmith gives the follow- 
ing account of the method by which it is extracted. 
The outward skin of the head being taken off, a 
covering of fat appears, about three inches thick ; 
and under that, instead of a bony skull, the animal 
has only another thick skin, that serves for a cover- 
ing and defence of the braip. The first cavity, or 
chamber of the brain, is filled with that spermaceti 
which is supposed of the greatest purity, and is of 
the highest value. From this cavity there is gene- 
rally drawn about seven barrels of the clearest 
spermaceti, that, thrown upon the water, coagu- 
lates like cheese. Below this there is another 
chamber, just over the gullet, which is about 
seven feet high, ; and this also contains the drug, 
but of less value. It is distributed in this ca- 
vity, like honey in a hive, in small cells, separated 
from each other by a membrane like the inner skin 
©f an egg. In proportion as the oily substance iff 
TOL II. 3 F 
