For centuries, perfume-makers have been obsessed with ambergris, a rare, gross-looking substance that gives fragrances a long-lasting, animalistic odor.
The indigestible parts of giant squid, in particular their beaks, accumulate in sperm whales' stomachs into the substance known as ambergris, which is used as a fixative in perfumes.
It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed; and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.
A sperm whale's colon can bulge to five times its usual diameter to accommodate one of these snowballing concretions, but eventually, it ruptures, killing the whale and releasing a huge butt-pearl of ambergris into the ocean.
Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject.