'54 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



are all I have to exhibit. From the barrel- 

 like size of the protruding intestine of one 

 of the whales we dissected, or more properly 

 peeled, it is reasonable to infer by the law of 

 relative proportions on which Agassiz constructs 

 a fish from a single scale, that the great aorta 

 of one of the .largest kind of whales can be 

 but little less in diameter than the bore of the 

 main pipe of the Croton water- works ; and the 

 water, as pursuing its passage through that 

 pipe, must be inferior in impetus and velocity 

 to the blood gushing from the whale's great 

 heart, when his pulse beats high in the conflict 

 with his captors. 



In Dr. Hunger's account to the Koyal So- 

 ciety of the dissection of only a small whale 

 cast upon the coast of Yorkshire, this aorta is 

 stated to have measured a foot in diameter. In 

 that proportion, fifteen or twenty gallons of 

 living blood must be ordinarily thrown out of 

 the heart of a large whale at a stroke, with an 

 immense velocity, through the great bore of a 

 blood-vessel, or rather blood aqueduct, a foot 

 or two in diameter. 



