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There's dough on the ocean — for those who can recognize it!
by MARCIA AUDREY GARDEN
THE crew of the Liberty ship, Al' bino Perez, hauled the huge, grayish, rubber'like mass into Mobile, Alabama, with high hopes that it would prove to be what they thought it was. They had fished the smelly substance out of the Atlantic some where off Gibraltar.
After a critical analysis of the por' ous, bulky stuff, the chief chemist of the A. W. Williams Inspection Com' pany confirmed the suspicions of the crew. The substance contained from thirteen to fifteen per cent pure am' bergris. This meant that the men of the Albino Perez had plucked about fifty thousand dollars out of the ocean. It was figured there were more than three hundred pounds of the rare and valuable ambergris in the mass, and every pound worth one hundred and sixty dollars. The lucky sailors had brought back to this coun' try one of the largest single quanti' ties of ambergris ever found. They decided to divide the proceeds from the sale among them, assuring each of well over a thousand dollars.
Few people know what ambergris is and why it is so extremely valu' able and rare. As a matter of fact, many who do know what ambergris
is wouldn't recognise it if they should come across it. In the Natural His' tory Museum of New York City, there is a whole display case devoted to objects which people have brought in while under the impression they had found ambergris. Among these are such things as cakes of soap, scraps of old, water-logged shoes, masses of hardened grease, lumps of fat, clinkers, sponges, water-soaked ships' biscuits, and dozens of other articles as worthless.
If a person is of the opinion he has found ambergris, he can make the following test: insert a hot needle into the substance. If it is ambergris, a peculiar odor will assail the nostrils and, on withdrawing the needle, an amber-colored liquid resembling oil will exude from the puncture.
Often, ambergris has been discovered by entirely unsuspecting persons. There was the instance of the handful of Hawaiians who took their horses to the edge of the water to wash them. When they happened to see something resembling sponge floating in the water nearby, they waded out, gathered up some of it and proceeded to wash down the horses with it. Suddenly they real