commissariat department to do the rest.

While thus ruminating, the mate and Louis began a desultory
conversation concerning what they termed "ambergrease." I had
never even heard the word before, although I had a notion that
Milton, in "Paradise Regained," describing the Satanic banquet,
had spoken of something being "grisamber steamed." They could
by no means agree as to what this mysterious substance was, how
it was produced, or under what conditions. They knew that it was
sometimes found floating near the dead body of a sperm whale--the
mate, in fact, stated that he had taken it once from the rectum
of a cachalot--and they were certain that it was of great value
--from one to three guineas per ounce. When I got to know more
of the natural history of the sperm whale, and had studied the
literature of the subject, I was so longer surprised at their
want of agreement, since the learned doctors who have written
upon the subject do not seem to have come to definite conclusions
either.

By some it is supposed to be the product of a diseased condition
of the creature; others consider that it is merely the excreta,
which, normally fluid, has by some means become concreted. It is
nearly always found with cuttle-fish beaks imbedded in its
substance, showing that these indigestible portions of the sperm
whale's food have in some manner become mixed with it during its
formation in the bowel. Chemists have analyzed it with scanty
results. Its great value is due to its property of intensifying
the power of perfumes, although, strange to say, it has little or
no odour of its own, a faint trace of musk being perhaps
detectable in some cases. The Turks are said to use it for a