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Gary and Angela Williams living in the English city of Overton Lancashire counties recently strolling along one of the bay’s beaches Morecambe and suddenly felt a strong stench, as if nearby a pile of fish rotted.
The British remembered a newspaper article once read, in which said that a similar smell on the beach may not come from the corpses of marine inhabitants, and from the rarest thrown ashore and a very expensive substance called ambergris.
Forty-nine-year-old spouses figured out where the stench comes from, and, to to my surprise, they were right when I came across a rounded whitish ostrich-like object. Williams, as hoped, found a piece of ambergris – a solid wax-like substance, formed in the digestive system of a sperm whale, then belched by an animal and cast ashore by the surf. Ambergris secreted by the intestinal mucosa of male sperm whales in the result of irritation caused by beaks swallowed by whales squid.
Fresh, this soft substance is gray or blackish color, however, when exposed to sea water and sunlight becomes light and hardens. Ambergris burns perfectly, dissolves in alcohol and essential oils, however completely insoluble in water. In the hands it softens, at a temperature of sixty two degrees Celsius melts, and at a hundred degrees it evaporates, turning into white steam. Fresh ambergris has an extremely unpleasant fecal odor, however, over time, it disappears, and the substance becomes light musky earthy aroma.
Finding ambergris pair hit jackpot
Earlier, ambergris was mined by whaling, however today, due to the ban on killing whales around the world, the only source of this substance are its walks on shores of the oceans. Detectable chunks weigh over ten grams up to several tens of kilograms. Largest recorded the “nugget” weighed more than three hundred and forty kilograms and was discovered in 1942 on the coast of the Portuguese island of Madeira.
A photo from open sources
Dry ambergris is incredibly highly regarded in the world of perfumery. Her used in elite expensive perfumes, where she performs in as an odor fixer, retaining the fragrance of perfume for a long time on the skin. All detectable ambergris is instantly acquired perfume companies. Gary and Angel, who immediately shook their find in a scarf and carried home, also quickly found the buyer.
For a half kilogram piece of ambergris found by the British paid fifty thousand pounds – translated into ours money is almost four million eight hundred thousand rubles! Is it worth it say that the British consider their walk on the beach peculiar participation in the lottery, where they managed to hit the real jackpot. If if it weren’t for them, someone else could have taken possession or, what else worse, a piece of gray ambergris would have been left unnoticed by anyone and crumbled into dust over time.
The money received, the engineer and the nurse plan to spend on major repairs of the house and the purchase of a good motor boat.
Water Time Money
