AMBER-GREASE

AMBER-GREASE, Ambergrease, Amber-Grise, Ambarum, a fragrant drug, that melts almost like wax; commonly of a greyish or ash-color, used both as a perfume and a cordial. It is found on the sea-coasts, in several countries; as along the southern and eastern parts of Africa, Madagascar, the Maldives, some parts of the Mediterranean, and in the West Indies, about the islands of Bermuda, etc. It is of divers colors, whitish, brownish, streaked with yellow, blackish, etc.

There is a great variety of opinions among naturalists with regard to its origin and production: To rehearse them all, would make a volume—The principal may be reduced to these which follow.



1°, Some take it for the excrement of a bird, which being melted by the heat of the sun, and washed off the shore by the waves; is swallowed by whales; who return it back in the condition we find it.

Or, as Barbosa relates, from the Ascetic inhabitants of the Maldives, the excrements aforementioned are altered and refined by lying on the rocks, exposed to the Sun, Moon, and Air; from whence they are afterwards washed off by the rising Sea. They add, that the whales frequently swallow pieces hereof: that those pieces we meet withal of a black color, took that hue in the stomach of those animals; that the brown are such as have floated long on the water; and the white, such as have only been a short time there, which they value the most. Razmujfo, Tom. I. fol. 313.

2°, Others speak of it as the excrement of a Cetaceous fish; because sometimes found in the intestines, and sometimes in the feces themselves, of such animals.—Justus Klobius, in his History of Amber, describes the animal, which he says is a whale, and called the Zruzk: Adding, that the Sperma Ceti is taken out of the head of the same creature.—Others, with the Persians, suppose the fish that yields the Ambergrease, a Sea-Calf; others, with the Africans, a peculiar species of fish, named Ambracanz; others a crocodile, by reason its flesh is perfumed, etc. But, to both these hypotheses it is objected, that we have no instance of any excrement capable of melting like wax. Add, that if it were the excrement of a whale, it should rather be found in such places where those animals abound, as about Greenland, etc., than about the Maldivy Islands, Soffala, Melinda, Cape Comorin, etc., where no whales are found.

3°, Others take it for a kind of wax, or gum, which distills from trees, and drops into the sea, where it congeals, and becomes Ambergrease.

4°, Others, and particularly many of the Orientals, imagine it springs out of the bottom of the sea, as Naphtha does out of some fountains—They add, that the only springs hereof are in the sea of Ormus, between the Arabian and Persian Gulfs. Edriffi, who is of this opinion, in the first climate of his geography, mentions pieces of Ambergrease, on those coasts, weighing a full hundred Paludans, and Linfchoot speak of it as a sort of pitch, gradually working up from the bottom of the sea, and hardening in the sun.

5°, Others take it for a sea-mushroom, torn up from the bottom by the violence of tempests; it being observed, that Ambergrease is never found but after storms.

6°, Others assert it a vegetable production, issuing out of the root of a tree, whose roots always shoot toward the sea, and discharge themselves into the same. —This account we have in the Philosophical Transactions, from one of the Dutch Factors at Batavia: And the same is confirmed by Mr. Boyle. Of Tastes and Odors.

7°, Others suppose it a spongy kind of earth, which the working of the sea washes from off the rocks, where, being lighter than water, it floats—Others are of opinion that it is a bituminous matter; that it is at first liquid, and runs into the sea, and that it is there condensed and reduced into a mass.

8°, Lastly, others maintain, that Ambergrease is made from the honey-combs which fall into the sea from the rocks, where the bees had formed their nests.—This opinion has something of experience on its side, and begins now to be generally allowed; several persons having seen pieces that were half Ambergrease, and half plain honey-comb: and others, again, having pieces of Ambergrease, which when broken, honey-comb, and honey too, were found in the middle. The pieces frequently seem composed of divers strata, laid one over another; with stones and other bodies enclosed therein; and the strata are sometimes full of little shells, which seem a species of Concha Anatifera: Whence it may be conjectured, that the Ambergrease has originally been in a fluid state; or at least, that it has been melted; and in that state has formed itself afresh, and enveloped such bodies as happened to be in its way. It is of considerable use among perfumers, who melt it over a gentle fire, and make extracts, essences, and tinctures of it—It would be of more use in physic too, were not its smell so rank and offensive, and on that account apt to occasion vapors. We have various instances in authors, of huge pieces of this matter: "The largest that has been known in Europe, was brought by the Dutch East-India Company, toward the close of the last century; and kept in their house for some years. It was almost round; measured two feet in diameter, and weighed one hundred eighty-two pounds. The great Duke of Tuscany offered fifty thousand crowns for it.

AMBER-GREASE