See Succinum.

A mbra Gri' sea, (from gris, grey). Also named 8uccinum-griseum,succinum-cinereum, ambarum,ambra arabibus, and in English ambergrise.

Much of it is met with in the Indian Ocean, and on the African coast; pieces of a considerable weight have been found in the northern seas. Sometimes it is seen floating on the surface of the sea, at others adhering to rocks; not unfrequently discovered in the stomachs of fish, or thrown on the shore; but it is found most plentifully about the island of Madagascar and the Molucca Islands: yet that brought to England comes from the Bahama Islands, and from Providence, where it is found on the coast. According to an account in the "Philosophical Transactions, No. 385, and 387, this drug is only the produce of the male spermaceti whale: it is there said to consist of balls, from three to twelve inches diameter, lying loose in a large oval bag three or four feet deep or wide, nearly in the form of an ox's bladder, with a pipe running into and through the penis, four or five feet below the navel, and three or four feet above the anus. This bag is almost full of a deep orange-coloured liquor, not quite so thick as oil, of the .same scent as the ambergrise which swims in it. These balls of ambergrise seem to be in laminae, like onions; and, in the fluid, pieces of the laminae are found. There are two, three, or four balls in a bag. Where one whale hath these balls, three or four have only the liquor in the bag. Whether these bags are peculiar to the male, or the aged fish, has not been determined. But the whole account is probably hypothetical. Accurate observers have constantly told us that the ambergrise is mixed with bones of cuttle-fish and other animal debris. It cannot then have been formed in a bag, from whence there is no very ample excretory duct, since the masses found are of a large size; nor can it have been produced in a bag to which the food has not access, since ambergrise is mixed with bones and other remains of the aliment. In fact, the accounts above referred to are collected from the observations of whalemen, who seem to have mistaken either the urinary concretions for ambergrise, or some secretory follicle, containing a substance similar to musk or castor. It is certain that the nature of the concrete was mistaken, since ambergrise very seldom appears to be composed of concentric coats. Neumann, Geoffroy, Cartheuser, and Macquer, think it a bitumen; but a paper was some years since presented to the Royal Society, by Dr. Swediaur, which asserts it to be an animal production, and the indurated faeces of the spermaceti whale. Messue calls it the spawn of the whale-fish. This opinion also is not very probable. It is not a feculent substance, for it neither contains ammonia nor an ammoniacal salt; and we are informed by Geoffroy, that it is sometimes mixed with the beaks of birds, with honey-combs, even with their cells filled with honey: nor is it a natural production of the fish, since the whales in which it is found are poor and sickly, and do not evacuate their faeces when hooked. It is still probable, therefore, that it is not an animal production. We know that animals of very different kinds are extremely fond of it; and not only the cetaceous tribe, but fish, crabs, birds, and quadrupeds, seek it with avidity. It is not however digestible, though it apparently contains some nutritious particles, and is voided with little change. The excrements of some birds are collected with peculiar care on account of their fragrance, owing to their having eaten ambergrise. If however it was a fossil, we should probably have found it in its fossil state: a single instance of this occurs in the volumes of the Academy of Sciences, among the memoirs of foreign philosophers, but it has been contradicted; nor is the opinion of Buffon, adopted by Sonnini, that it consists of animal substances, agglutinated at the bottom of the sea by a liquid bitumen, more probable. Dioscorides, and some other ancient naturalists, thought it a vegetable substance, and Aublet considers it as the same with the rezin de coumier; and the younger Linnaeus as the production of the amyris ambrosiaca Lin. Pl. Supplem. 216. Sp. Pl. ed. Wildenow, 335. vol. ii. If it must be an animal substance, it is probably derived from the food of the whale. Many of the molluscae and cuttle-fish, on which whales feed, have the smell of ambergrise, particularly the sepa tuberculata of Montfort, and the s. rugosa of Bosc. The human excrementitious fluids often smell of ambergrise. The human excrement, in some of Homberg's experiments, was made to exhale this odour; and a towel employed to wash the hands, if shut up closely, is not very distant from it in smell.

Pure ambergrise, in its tenacity, softness, and easily yielding, resembles wax: it swims in rectified spirit of wine; grows soft in a very gentle heat; is opake, rugged, of a greyish ash colour, mingled with yellow and white or greenish spots; it hath no particular taste, though softish, oily, and somewhat aromatic; it adheres to the teeth; when bitten affords but little smell, except it is heated, and then it is very fragrant; set on fire, its odour is like that of burning amber; with a small degree of heat it melts into an oil, without froth, and in a great heat it is volatile. It may be broken into scaly fragments, but cannot easily be powdered.

The genuine is speckled with green or black spots: the less it is variegated, the worse: the worst sorts approach to a deep black. Its purity is ascertained by penetrating it with a hot needle, when its peculiar odour will be exhaled.

It is soluble in boiling spirit of wine: from which, if the saturated solution be set in a very cold place, a part of the ambergrise concretes into a whitish unctuous substance. Distilled, it yields an aqueous phlegm, a brown acidulous spirit, a deep-coloured oil, a thicker balsam, and sometimes a little concrete salt. The spirit, oil, balsam, and salt, are similar to those obtained from amber, except that the oil is more agreeable to the smell.

Rectified spirit of wine takes up near 1-12th of its weight of ambergrise. According to Neumann, if the spirit is impregnated with a little essential oil, the ambergrise will dissolve more readily in it. A deeper coloured, but not stronger, tincture is made with alcohol. Dulcified acids and alkaline spirits have no effect upon it; water and expressed oils have as little.

It is one of the most agreeable perfumes: it heightens the natural odour of other bodies; but the great secret to this end is, to add it so sparingly, that while it improves the smell of that to which it is added its own may not be discovered. It has been given as a cordial, aphrodisiac and antispasmodic, but is neglected by modern practice. The preparations belong to the trade of the perfumer. The usual dose was from twelve grains to a scruple. Hoffman informs us, that a highly rectified spirit of roses, drawn off repeatedly from a fixed alkali, is its best menstruum.

A counterfeit as well as adulterated sort is too often to be met with; the first generally consists of musk, civet, storax, labdanum, and aloes wood, mixed together; the latter of a large quantity of bullock's blood, duly flavoured with musk and civet. See Neumann's Chem. Works, and Lewis's Mat. Medica.