"It is almost as hard to know what it is, as where to find it," wrote Thomas Fuller, describing ambergris in his compendium, The History of the Worthies of England, which he completed around 1651.
Fuller then went on to recount the washing ashore of a mass of ambergris on the Cornwall coastline a few decades earlier. It occurred "about the third year of king Charles," who had ascended to the throne in 1626. The ambergris had been "found in this county, at low water, close to the shore of the manor of Anthony, then belonging to Richard Carew, Esquire."
Like almost everyone else in the seventeenth century, Fuller was more than aware of the value of ambergris. But its source still was a mystery.
Fuller wrote: "Some will have it the sperm of a fish, or some other unctious matter arising from them; others, that it is the foam of the sea, or some excrescency thence, boiled to such a height by the heat of the sun; others, that it is a gum that grows on the shore. In a word, no certainty can be collected herein, some physicians holding one way, and some another. But this is most sure, that apothecaries hold it at five pounds an ounce, which some say is dearer than ever it was in the memory of man."
And with those words from Thomas Fuller, welcome to The Ambergris Files. I'm a writer and a scientist, and I've just completed a non-fiction book about ambergris, for publication in 2012 by Harper Collins in Australia and New Zealand, and the University of Chicago Press in the US and Europe. Over the next year, I'll be sharing more passages like this one, and also posting photographs and more detailed information about ambergris -- the strangest and most singular natural substance known to man. And, by the way, ambergris is what an eighteenth century German scientist called "preternaturally hardened whale dung." It's a fatty concretion of squid beaks -- the product of a squid beak-fueled indigestion.
And I'd also like to consider this a sorting room, a kind of clearing house, for all queries, comments and questions about ambergris, along with a history of its use, tips on how to identify it properly and some information about where it is most often found. I'll share photos I've taken and conversations I've had with ambergris dealers, collectors and end-users. So, feel free to contact me, read along and join the conversation!
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And with those words from Thomas Fuller, welcome to The Ambergris Files. I'm a writer and a scientist, and I've just completed a non-fiction book about ambergris, for publication in 2012 by Harper Collins in Australia and New Zealand, and the University of Chicago Press in the US and Europe. Over the next year, I'll be sharing more passages like this one, and also posting photographs and more detailed information about ambergris -- the strangest and most singular natural substance known to man. And, by the way, ambergris is what an eighteenth century German scientist called "preternaturally hardened whale dung." It's a fatty concretion of squid beaks -- the product of a squid beak-fueled indigestion.
And I'd also like to consider this a sorting room, a kind of clearing house, for all queries, comments and questions about ambergris, along with a history of its use, tips on how to identify it properly and some information about where it is most often found. I'll share photos I've taken and conversations I've had with ambergris dealers, collectors and end-users. So, feel free to contact me, read along and join the conversation!
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