302 On ike Kraken. 



it necessary to remain silent on the subject, to escape the im- 

 putation of using a traveller's privilege of dealing in the marvel- 

 lous. 



On the evening of September 9, Captain James Riley was at 

 my house, and said he knew Captain Folger of Nantucket, who 

 was occupied on a whaling voyage in the Southern Atlantic 

 Ocean about 20 years ago. On the cruise, he saw an animal of 

 uncommon size floating on the sea, off the coast of Brazil. Cap- 

 tain Folger then commanded a very large French-built ship, and 

 the floating carcase was four or five times as long as his vessel. 

 It attracted the spermaceti whales, who came to feed upon it, and 

 had eaten away great portions of the flesh. He visited the huge 

 body of the creature, and satisfied himself it was an enormous 

 kraken. He hauled all his boats upon it, and his men ascended 

 and lived upon it as if it had been a rock or island. They remained 

 on it for the purpose of killing the whales that came to devour 

 it. In this they were so successful, that by continuing there they 

 took whales enough to load their vessel and complete her cargo. 

 The back of the kraken was high and dry enough for them to 

 inhabit temporarily, and to look out for their game. And when 

 from this point of observation they discovered a whale coming to 

 make a meal, they launched their boats from the top of the dead 

 kraken, and made an easy prey of him. The substance of the 

 monster's body was skinny, membranous and gelatinous, and 

 destitute of the fat and blubber for which the whale is remark- 

 able. 



Captain Neville being on a voyage from London to Archangel, 

 in the year 1803, saw floating on the ocean, in about the latitude 

 of 68, a mass of solid matter of a dirty whitish colour, which, 

 when he descried it, and for some time after, was believed to be 

 an island of ice. On approaching it, however, he ascertained it 

 to be an animal substance of an irregular figure, as if lacerated, 

 decayed, and eaten away. The remnant of the carcase was never- 

 theless full as large as the brig in which he sailed ; whose capa- 

 city was one hundred and eighty-nine tons, and length seventy 

 feet. This enormous body was the food of animals both of the 

 air and of the water; for as he sailed within a few rods of it, he 

 saw great number; of gulls and other sea fowl sitting on it and 

 flying over it; those which were full retiring, and the hungry 

 Avinging their way to it for a repast. He also beheld several 

 cetaceous creatures swimming round it ; some of them were 

 whales of a prodigious magnitude, exceeding the vessel in length. 

 Others were smaller, and seemed to belong to the grampus and 

 porpoise tribe. He considered them all as regaling themselves 

 with its flesh. 



Near one extremity of this carcase, he distinguished an ap- 

 pendage 



