{"id":"01KFNR89MRSKRXKKA8720NK8F3","cid":"bafkreiazblmmxu6bdiqebr3shof5sn2s4g47bbvo5qj56f7slbetpuxt7q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":15993,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.769Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":15930,"text":"CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.\r\n\r\nNow this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an\r\narticle of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain\r\nCoffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that\r\nsubject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day,\r\nthe precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem\r\nto the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound\r\nfor grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber,\r\nthough at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far\r\ninland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea.\r\nBesides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance,\r\nused for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris\r\nis soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely\r\nused in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and\r\npomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for\r\nthe same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter’s in Rome.\r\nSome wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.\r\n\r\nWho would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should\r\nregale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a\r\nsick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the\r\ncause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to\r\ncure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering\r\nthree or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of\r\nharm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.\r\n\r\nI have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris,\r\ncertain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be\r\nsailors’ trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were\r\nnothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.\r\n\r\nNow that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be\r\nfound in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that\r\nsaying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption;\r\nhow that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise\r\ncall to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the\r\nbest musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of\r\nill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is\r\nthe worst.\r\n\r\nI should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but\r\ncannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against\r\nwhalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds,\r\nmight be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said\r\nof the Frenchman’s two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous\r\naspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is\r\nthroughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to\r\nrebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this\r\nodious stigma originate?\r\n\r\nI opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the\r\nGreenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because\r\nthose whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea\r\nas the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh\r\nblubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks,\r\nand carry it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those\r\nIcy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed,\r\nforbidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking\r\ninto the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the\r\nGreenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising\r\nfrom excavating an old city grave-yard, for the foundations of a\r\nLying-in Hospital.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84F9V753K1RB4Z4DYEA9","peer_label":"Ambergris","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84F9V753K1RB4Z4DYEA9","peer_label":"Ambergris","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR89PA4H33580EXXA56YMQ","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.213Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.947Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}