aunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and
pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat's crew were all in high
excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as
gold-hunters.

And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and
screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning
to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when
suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint
stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without
being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with
another, without at all blending with it for a time.

"I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in
the subterranean regions, "a purse! a purse!"

Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls
of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old
cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with
your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this, good
friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist.
Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the
sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for
impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board,
else the ship would bid them good bye.

CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as
an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain
Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that
subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day,
the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem
to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for
grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though
at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland
soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides,
amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for
mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft,
waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in
perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum.
The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same
purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in R