THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



investigation of the structure of whales) was caught 

 above London Bridge in 1 798, having wandered far from 

 its native waters. 



The beluga, or white whale, is another toothed whale : 

 one of the dolphin family, closely related to the narwhal. 

 Its body is only from twelve to sixteen feet in length, but 

 has graceful proportions, and a creamy- white colour : it 

 is in fact the most beautiful of all whales. The flippers are 

 short, the head is arched and sinks abruptly to the 

 creature's short, rounded snout. Its teeth are small and 

 conical, and number eight to ten in each jaw. This whale 

 has been successfully kept in aquariums. 



The white whale's headquarters are around Green- 

 land, but they occur all over the Arctic seas, often going 

 as far south as the St. Lawrence. Only very rarely do 

 they appear near the British coasts. The Greenlanders 

 capture them by harpooning, or with strong nets. The 

 flesh is largely eaten, the blubber yields a very fine oil, 

 the skin is made into a tough and durable leather, and 

 other parts of the body are also used commercially. The 

 name ''beluga" is also applied to a great Russian stur- 

 geon, while the name "white whale" has been popu- 

 larized by Hermann Melville in Moby Dick. But the 

 great white whale which he describes as the object of 

 Captain Ahab's obsession is a sperm whale — a freak in 

 its colouring — and must not be confused with this much 

 smaller whale, the true white whale or beluga. 



The great sperm whale sometimes performs gymnastics 

 on the surface of the sea which, considering its enormous 

 weight, are little short of miraculous. When it "breaches" 

 — the word used by whalers to describe its leaping from 

 the water — it shoots up twenty feet or more, and falls 

 back flat on the surface. Another whaling word is "lob- 

 tailing", which describes the way a sperm whale stands 

 on its head, which of course is submerged, and smacks the 

 surface of the sea sharply with its huge tail. The per- 

 cussions are thunderous and can be heard for miles 



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