THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 45 



to belch out white vapor on a summer's day like a 

 steamboat. 



Such, then, is the whale's spout. And by the 

 spout the two kinds of whales, sperm and right, 

 can be distinguished. A sperm whale has but one 

 spout-hole, and throws the spout forward at an 

 angle of about forty-five degrees — a thick spout 

 and not very high, rising from a point near the 

 whale's " nose." A right whale has two spout- 

 holes, very close together. They are about 

 eighteen feet from the end of his head and, of 

 course, much nearer his lungs than is the case 

 with the sperm whale. Consequently the vapor 

 shoots up higher and as straight as a mast. It 

 spreads as it rises. I suppose, too, that the big- 

 ness of a whale is something few landsmen could 

 well give account of. As a matter of fact, a sixty- 

 foot whale is about as big as you will ever see. 

 Big enough, says any whaleman — big enough to 

 serve as a very worthy adversary to pigmy man 

 who goes to slay him ! 



Very naturally you ask, as Brutus did (or was 

 it Cassius ? ) : " What meat has this, our Caesar 

 fed on, that he is grown so great ? " 



That depends on your whale. The sperm 

 whale, having teeth, lives on deep-sea jelly-fish. 

 The right whale, which is as toothless as any 



