THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 47 



Sperm whales have, as already intimated, their 

 ups and downs. A large sperm whale remains 

 under water from forty-five minutes to an hour 

 and a quarter. That is a fact to go by. When a 

 whale has sounded and you are waiting for him to 

 come up, it is a relief to know that some sort of 

 limit is set upon his delay. But that is not all. 

 You can judge where he will come up. For a 

 whale travels, unless vigorously disturbed, about 

 two miles an hour. So you note which way he 

 headed when he sounded, and you measure off two 

 miles in that direction, and you know where to 

 meet your friend again. This is an infallible rule 

 whenever it works. 



But a whale has something beside ups and 

 downs and blubber. He has a marvellous 

 sagacity. By some mysterious process, which 

 I suppose the Society for Psychical Research 

 would call " thought transference," whales pass 

 the news of disaster from one end of a school 

 to another. When one of the company is 

 wounded, every whale within a radius of four 

 miles is advised of the fact. Sometimes the 

 alarm will bring speedy assistance. That gives 

 the whaleman only a better chance to ply his 

 srainful trade. Sometimes a retreat is ordered. 

 The whole squadron will dash away as by some 



