FORTUNE IN AMBERGRIS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 559, 11 January 1929, Page 1

FORTUNE IN AMBERGRIS

HUGE PIECE PICKED UP NEAR KAIPARA (Special to THE SEN) j i DARGAVIDLE. To-day. A record piece of ambergris, estimated to weigh about 224ibs. avoirdupois, was found ■at The Spit, near Kaipara Heads, yesterday, by Mr. V. Subritsky and his brother, who were motoring in the vicinity and noticed it in the tide. 1 The piece was so large that they had difficulty in getting it into the car. On their arrival at their beach camp it took four men to carry it. The piece was brought into the bank to-day and will be shipped to London. It is ! probably the largest single piece ever found in New Zealand. At present market rates it is worth several thousand pounds. # It is to be hoped that the ] finder of the “ambergris” is not on a. false scent, and that the -substance is really the precious 1 secretion of the whale. Many a beach-stroller has discovered ■ a quantity of evil-smelling stuff, I and even deposited it in a bank, in the belief that it is a fortune, only to be disillusioned by the expert, who pronounces 1 it to be a mass of rotting fat, thrown overboard by a ship's cook. If the substance is the real ~; thing, washed for .many moons 1 in the sea, and changed from the raw blackness to the grey of pumice stone,. it may be worth up to £3 an ounce. The price varies from shillings to that amount, depending on the quality. The new, or raw. ambergris- smells strongly, and is worth little. After an age in the sea it Iqscj4 weight and colour, and there is. just a faint odour of musk about it. Often even the experts are uncertain whether a substance is ambergris until they have burnt a little, the real stuff lighting like sealing-wax.