116 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



shoulder-blade. There are none of the movable or the 

 semi-movable articulations. Those I have mentioned 

 possess cartilaginous surfaces, as they do in other ani- 

 mals ; and thus the effects of friction are prevented : the 

 other bones are only united by ligaments, which, how- 

 ever, do not form any capsules ; they are interosseous, 

 and serve more the purposes of agility than flexibility. 

 The greatest portions of the skeleton are united through 

 the medium of intervening cartilages, even to the fingers, 

 that is, the bones within the pectoral fins. The sutures 

 are imperfectly formed, and in some places the kind of 

 suture termed harmonia can hardly be said to exist ; in 

 the head, especially, the union of the bones is so feeble, 

 that they appear nearly disunited. 



Most of the bones of these animals are very porous, 

 and contain large quantities of very fine oil. The lower 

 jaw-bones, which measure usually from twenty to twenty- 

 five feet in length, are frequently preserved on account 

 of the oil, which can be drained from them when they 

 are conveyed into a warm climate. When this is ex- 

 hausted, these bones float freely in water. They have 

 very little of the compact substance which usually cha- 

 racterises bones, and in some parts form portions which 

 are denominated epiphyses, that are but feebly connected 

 to the other bones ; and in the spine thirteen trans- 

 verse natural processes were found detached from the 

 body of the bone, without any apparent cause. Another 

 peculiarity exists in the articulation of the ribs, which 

 are not united to the bodies of the vertebrae, as in other 

 mammalia, but are connected through an intervening 

 cartilage to the transverse processes of the dorsal ver- 

 tebrae. This portion of the skeleton is pretty nearly 

 solid. 



According to the observations of the late Sir Charles 



