296 
ON AMBERGRIS. 
adulterated, it was to be returned (certainly a very good pre- 
caution, but not so easily to be accomplished.) 
Dr. K. next speaks of the adulterations to which it is lia- 
ble, and gives some modes for detecting them, all of which 
Mr. Payne fully detailed. 
Mr. Payne then proceeded to observe, that it is usual to 
prefer ambergris which, on fracture, presents a greyish and 
somewhat speckled appearance; unctuous when pressed be- 
tween the fingers; smell somewhat resembling old cow- 
dung; tolerably soluble in rectified spirit, to which it im- 
parts its odour, and in proportion to which solubility its 
quality or purity may be determined; depositing from the 
solution, when dried off, a whitish and fatty residuum. 
Ambergris is now well known to be obtained from the 
intestinal canal of the cachalot, or sperm whale; so that the 
name of whale's dung, which Kaempfer tells us the Japa- 
nese have given to it, is by no means an inappropriate one. 
It is usual to meet with extrinsic impurities in it, which 
have been mistaken for shells, but which are in fact the 
beaks of the Sepia moschata, on which the sperm whale 
feeds. This is a strong confirmation of the common opinion 
of the intestinal origin of ambergris. 
According to some writers, it is regarded as hardened 
faeces merely; while others consider it to be a product of 
disease. Mr. Beale, in his Natural History of the Sperm 
Whale, (1839,) observes, that on one occasion, while in the 
North Pacific, he had the curiosity to collect some of the 
semi-fluid faeces which floated from the carcase of a whale, 
while the men were cutting it up; and which, on being 
dried in the sun, bore all the properties of ambergris. On 
the other hand, Mr. F. D. Bennett, in his Narrative of a 
Whaling Voyage round the Globe, (1840,) declares, that 
"ambergris is a morbid concretion in the intestines of the 
cachalot, deriving its origin either from the stomach or bili- 
ary ducts, and allied in its nature to gall-stones, or to the 
bezoars of herbivorous animals; while the masses found 
