The Whalers : 205 



of oil, the richness of the plankton beds in these waters is difficult to 

 comprehend. 



There is another way of picturing the enormous amount of food 

 required. This way is to concentrate on the energy expended by a sin- 

 gle whale in just going about his day-by-day business. In order to 

 breathe and to oxidize his food so that he can build up fat and mus- 

 cle, the whale requires thirty-eight liters (or thirty-three quarts) of 

 oxygen each minute of his existence. This is only an average figure. 

 Whales take into their systems enormous quantities of air which they 

 gradually use up as they swim at the surface or under water. The 

 whale is an animal and has no gills such as are possessed by fish for 

 taking oxygen from sea water. When the oxygen from the air that the 

 whale has taken into his lungs becomes exhausted, he must rise to the 

 surface to breathe again. Whales do their breathing through nostrils 

 or blow holes on the upper surface of their body or near the highest 

 part of the animal when it is afloat in the water. Since the whale is a 

 warm-blooded animal, since he often is swimming in quite cold wa- 

 ter, and since, also, the air in his system has been under great pres- 

 sure, when he breathes he sends up a vapory mist that can be seen 

 at a considerable distance. This the old whalemen called "blowing." 

 The whale never spurts water though many an artist who has never 

 been among whales makes it appear as though this were the case. The 

 thirty-eight liters of air per minute that the whale takes into his sys- 

 tem must produce a great amount of power. Scientists who have 

 given some time to the study of whales assert that the whale custom- 

 arily travels at around ten knots. In order to propel his great bulk 

 through the water at this speed he must develop forty-seven horse- 

 power. This we may think of as the horsepower at "cruising speed." 

 It is the only statement regarding horsepower for whales that I can 

 find. Obviously it is not a measure of what the whale can do when he 

 really puts his heart and back into it. 



When the right whale races across the ocean with a boat in tow, 

 or when a sperm whale dives or does some of the other powerful 

 and unexpected things that whales are always doing, they must be 

 expending energy at a greater horsepower rating than that suggested 

 by the scientists. 



It was the whalebone that made the right whale "right" but why 

 was whalebone itself right or valuable? The answer to that is the 

 ladies. 



The various shapes in which ladies felt it necessary to appear in the 



