Saturday, September 02, 2006

THE NEW GOLD RUSH : WHALE VOMIT

Ahhh, yeah, that's right. A major discovery of...whale vomit on a Welsh beach has been headlined as "Gold Rush" in this article.

Here's the high points :

Local officials in North Wales fear of an impending gold rush after beachcombers found precious ambergris or "whale vomit" along its coastline.

The ambergris, also known as grey amber, is considered by many as floating gold because of its high value.

Top perfume makers pay as much as $65 a gram for ambergris - a substance also deemed by Chinese to be an aphrodisiac. One find of ambergris can be worth as much as $3,800.


It is produced when the whale has been eating squid and their parrot-like beaks have irritated the walls of its innards

It's good to know the ingredients of expensive perfume are sourced from such....interesting scent manufacturers. Whale guts, basically. How stupid of me to think those wonderful fragrances came from, like, flowers or something.

Here's some info on ambergris, if you must know more..

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