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CHAPTER 92 . Ambergris . Now this ambergris is a very curious substance , and so important as an article of commerce , that in 1791 a certain Nantucket - born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject . For at that time , and indeed until a comparatively late day , the precise origin of ambergris remained , like amber itself , a problem to the learned . Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for grey amber , yet the two substances are quite distinct . For amber , though at times found on the sea - coast , is also dug up in some far inland soils , whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea . Besides , amber is a hard , transparent , brittle , odorless substance , used for mouth - pieces to pipes , for beads and ornaments ; but ambergris is soft , waxy , and so highly fragrant and spicy , that it is largely used in perfumery , in pastiles , precious candles , hair - powders , and pomatum . The Turks use it in cooking , and also carry it to Mecca , for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St . Peter’s in Rome . Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret , to flavor it . Who would think , then , that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale ! Yet so it is . By some , ambergris is supposed to be the cause , and by others the effect , of the dyspepsia in the whale . How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say , unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills , and then running out of harm’s way , as laborers do in blasting rocks . I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris , certain hard , round , bony plates , which at first Stubb thought might be sailors ’ trowsers buttons ; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner . Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay ; is this nothing ? Bethink thee of that saying of St . Paul in Corinthians , about corruption and incorruption ; how that we are sown in dishonor , but raised in glory . And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk . Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill - savor , Cologne - water , in its rudimental manufacturing stages , is the worst . I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal , but cannot , owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen , and which , in the estimation of some already biased minds , might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of the Frenchman’s two whales . Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved , that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly , untidy business . But there is another thing to rebut . They hint that all whales always smell bad . Now how did this odious stigma originate ? I opine , that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling ships in London , more than two centuries ago . Because those whalemen did not then , and do not now , try out their oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done ; but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits , thrust it through the bung holes of large casks , and carry it home in that manner ; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas , and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed , forbidding any other course . The consequence is , that upon breaking into the hold , and unloading one of these whale cemeteries , in the Greenland dock , a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old city grave - yard , for the foundations of a Lying - in Hospital .
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