124 WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. 



If the Greenland whale is king of the deep, 

 the sperm whale is prince. This whale is black, 

 and is found in nearly all seas, but most 

 frequently in southern hemspheres. What sailors 

 call the "bull whale," an ancient male, has a 

 large gray spot on the front of the head. The 

 throat is large enough to admit the body of a 

 man. The mouth has no baleen. The upper 

 jaw is without teeth ; the lower jaw having 

 twenty-five or thirty on either side, according 

 to the age of the animal, which are conical and 

 slightly recurved, deeply embedded in the gum, 

 from which they reach for about two inches. 

 The lower jaw is extremely narrow, the teeth 

 fitting into cavities in the upper jaw. These 

 teeth weigh from one to three pounds each. 

 This whale has a single spout or blow-hole 

 situated near the front of the head. The 

 enormous head of the sperm whale is mostly 

 occupied by a cavity in front of and above the 

 skull, called by whalers " the case," which some- 

 times holds as many as fifteen barrels of 

 spermaceti. This substance hardens on cooling. 

 The oil with which it is mixed in the case is 

 separated from it by drawing and squeezing, and 

 the yellow unctuous spermaceti becomes the 

 beautiful, pearly-white, flaky substance of crys- 



