2IO FOLLOW THE WHALE 



cumb than other species. Also, of course, they are deep-sea rovers, 

 and although normally slow cruisers proceeding at a steady four 

 knots, they can put on spurts of up to twenty knots and sustain a 

 steady sixteen for long distances. Their strange tails form a highly 

 efficient pair of sculls which work with a double, semirotary action, 

 making figure-of-eight motions around the fore and aft axis, which, 

 combined, amount almost to the completely rotary action of a two- 

 bladed screw propeller. 



Such, then, was the animal that the Nantucketer, Captain Chris- 

 topher Hussey, first took in the year 171 2, though it must be pre- 

 sumed that he knew practically nothing of the nature of the beast 

 and, it would seem, almost as little about its economic value. In fact, 

 we here encounter something of a mystery in the history of whaling, 

 for all extant records affirm that the great value of this first sperm 

 whale was immediately appreciated. There is no explanation as to 

 how anybody knew of its value, so we are presented with the curious 

 paradox of something new being well recognized. If it was recog- 

 nized, it must have been known before, and if it was known before, 

 we may well ask why nothing had been done about it for some hun- 

 dred years. At first glance there would seem to be no real problem 

 involved, but the more you think about it and, certainly, the further 

 you delve into what old records still exist, the more mysterious the 

 whole business becomes. After considerable research I have been 

 forced, albeit rather reluctantly, to the conclusion that once again 

 the intelligence came from the Amerindians. 



The sperm whale is admittedly an open-ocean or deep-water 

 species, and the colonists had only just started making off-shore voy- 

 ages of more than a few days' duration by the year 17 12, so they 

 would have had little opportunity to encounter the animal. Further, 

 at that time there were no other peoples engaged in sperming. On 

 the other hand, sperm whales are washed ashore dead almost as often 

 as baleen whales, so there may have been some general knowledge of 

 the beast along the coast. However, the immediate appreciation and 

 apparent considerable knowledge of the wide variety of economically 

 worthwhile products that could be derived from the animal predis- 

 pose a certain intimacy with the species. It is the supposed medicinal 

 properties of the spermaceti that are specially mentioned, and this is 

 definitely stated to be in accord with Indian beliefs. 



