Floating Gold

From: Jennie Erin Smith, "Something indescribably elemental: A history of ambergris" [Review of Christopher Kemp, FLOATING GOLD A natural (and unnatural) history of ambergris 187pp. University of Chicago Press], The Times Literary Supplement (September 10, 2012)

"Ambergris is sperm whale faeces that have been transformed by intestinal bacteria and oxidation into a solid, waxy mass that is pleasantly aromatic, though not without betraying a whiff of its origins. It begins as a build-up of indigestible squid beaks and waste in the whale’s rectum, growing layer by layer around a hard core.

Sometimes the whale expels the mass into the sea, where it may drift for many years before washing ashore, usually in small pieces resembling rocks. At other times the mass becomes large enough to occlude the bowels of the whale and kill it. Whalers once looked for ambergris only in thin or sickly whales, and even in recent years beached sperm whales have been disembowelled by shrewd ambergris seekers in Sri Lanka and New Zealand. The price of good ambergris, which is still used in perfumery, is about $1,000 a pound; it gives depth and power to heady scents like Chanel No. 5 and Shalimar."

Image from, with caption: Ambergris New Zealand