156 HAUPT— JONAH'S WHALE. [April 20, 



In a cuneiform inscription of the Assyrian king Assur-nagir-pal 

 (885-860 B. c.) we find the statement that his predecessor Tiglath- 

 pileser I (about iioo b. c.) boarded Phoenician ships at x\rvad 

 (near the N. E. end of the Mediterranean) and slew a hloiver, just 

 as the German Emperor a few years ago, during one of his Nor- 

 wegian cruises, took part in a whale-hunt. The Greek name of the 

 sperm-whale, physeter, means hlozver, i. e., spouting up water. ^ 

 In a paper on the cuneiform name of the cachalot (which I read 

 at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society held in 

 Philadelphia, April 5, 1907)^ I showed that the blozver (Assyr. 

 ndkhiru) slain by the ancient Assyrian king in the N. E. part of 

 the jMediterranean must have been a spcrm-zvhale,^ because in a 

 passage of the cuneiform annals of Assur-nagir-pal we read that 

 this Assyrian king received, as tribute from Tyre, Zidon, Arvad, and 

 other places on the Phoenician coast, ivory teeth of the hlozver, the 

 creature of the sea. This blozver with ivory teeth cannot have been 

 a narzvhal "* or zvalrtts;^ these animals are not found in the Mediter- 

 ranean. The sperm-whale has, on each side of the lower jaw,^ 

 from 20 to 25 conical (slightly recurved) teeth which consist of the 

 finest ivory. They are about 5 or 6 in. long, projecting about 2 -in. 

 from the gum. The upper jaw, which is very much larger than 

 the lower jaw, is destitute of teeth ; at any rate the upper teeth 

 are quite rudimentary and buried in the gum. 



'The blowing or spouting of a whale. is the act of expiration; the visible 

 stream is chiefly condensed vapor like that of human breath on a cold day. 



^See the American Journal of Semitic Languages, Vol. XIII., p. 253. 



^ The blow-hole of the cachalot is near the edge of the snout. 



*The so-called horn of the narwhal (which is sometimes ten feet long 

 and which consists of the hardest ivory) is the left upper incisor of the 

 animal, just as the tusks of elephants are incisors. The horn of the unicorn 

 in the British royal coat of arms is the tusk of a narwhal ; see my remarks 

 in the translation of the Psalms, in the Polychrome Bible, p. 173. 



^ The enormous teeth which protrude like* tusks from the upper jaw 

 of the male walrus are canines, just as the large ivory teeth of the hippopot- 

 amus, which sometimes reach a length of two feet or more and weigh up- 

 ward of six pounds. 



^The scientific name of the spenn-zi'hale is Physeter or Catodon macro- 

 ccphalus. Catodon means liaving under teeth. Macrocephalus points to the 

 enormous size of the square head of the cachalot, which represents one half 

 of the entire bulk of the animal and about one third of the total length. 



