You might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue
between yellow and ash color. And this, good friends,
is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist.
Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost
in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured
were it not for impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist,
and come on board, else the ship would bid them good-bye.
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.
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