A hunk of what? Worth how much?!It was certainly a departure from Christmas fruitcake fruit·cake n. 1. A heavy spiced cake containing nuts and candied or dried fruits. 2. Slang A crazy or an eccentric person: "a fruitcake under the delusion that he was Saint Nicholas" . In December, Dorothy Ferreira of Montauk, N.Y., opened a package from her 82-year-old sister in Iowa to find an ungainly object that looked like a gnarled gnarled adj. 1. Having gnarls; knotty or misshapen: gnarled branches. 2. Morose or peevish; crabbed. 3. , funky candle. Her sister said it was just some strange thing she found on a Long Island beach 50 years ago. But it turns out it could be a hunk of petrified pet·ri·fy v. pet·ri·fied, pet·ri·fy·ing, pet·ri·fies v.tr. 1. To convert (wood or other organic matter) into a stony replica by petrifaction. 2. whale vomit worth as much as $18,000. Walter Galcik, a Montauk resident who inspected the object, says it might be ambergris--a substance created in the intestines of sperm whales and spewed into the ocean. In its petrified form, ambergris ambergris (ăm`bərgrēs), waxlike substance originating as a morbid concretion in the intestine of the sperm whale. Lighter than water, it is found floating on tropical seas or cast up on the shore in yellow, gray, black, or variegated is a rare ingredient used in fine perfumes. But even if Ferreira has the real deal, it will be difficult to cash in. Endangered-species legislation has made buying or selling ambergris illegal since the 1970s. |
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