110 THE WHALE. 



animals it resembles in colour the substance of the 

 salmon. It swims in water. Its thickness all 

 round the body, is eight or ten or twenty inches, va- 

 rying in different parts as well as in different indi- 

 viduals. The lips are composed almost entirely of 

 blubber, and yield from one to two tons of pure oil 

 each. The tongue is chiefly composed of a soft 

 kind of fat, that affords less oil than any other blub- 

 ber; in the centre of the tongue, and towards the 

 root, the fat is intermixed with fibres of a muscular 

 substance. The under jaw, excepting the two jaw 

 bones, consists almost wholly of fat, and the crown 

 bone possesses a considerable coating of it; the fins 

 are principally blubber, tendons and bones, and the 

 tail possesses a thin stratum of blubber. The oil 

 appears to be retained in the blubber in minute cells, 

 connected together by a strong reticulated combina- 

 tion of tendinous fibres. These fibres being condens- 

 ed at the surface, appear to form the substance of 

 the skin. The oil is expelled when heated, and in 

 a great measure discharges itself out of the henks, 

 whenever putrefaction in the fibrous parts of the 

 blubber takes place. The blubber and the whale- 

 bone are the parts of the whale, to which the atten- 

 tion of the fisher is directed. The flesh and bones, 

 excepting occasionally the jaw bone, are rejected. 

 The blubber, in its fresh state, is without any un- 

 pleasant smell, and it is not until after the termi- 

 nation of the voyage, when the cargo is unstowed, 

 that a Greenland ship becomes disagreeable. 



