134 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



whale is square, the end of it something like 

 the largest timber-log ever seen, sawed off 

 straight. It is truly a prodigious mass of or- 

 ganised, compact matter, with which this animal 

 has been known sometimes, to butt like a ram 

 against the sides of a ship, and break it in. 

 They often go in this way "head on" to boats, 

 but are generally pricked off and turned with a 

 lance, or dexterously avoided. 



From what may be called the top of the 

 forehead, to the roof of the mouth of this 

 square-faced sui generis monster, it measured 

 nine feet in a straight line, and there was a cor- 

 responding breadth and depth of forehead ; so 

 that, with its prodigious volume of brain, (head 

 matter), and so large a facial angle, the bust of 

 this creature is most favourably commended to 

 the fingers of phrenologists. Is it not a little 

 surprising, that in the researches of comparative 

 phrenology, the cranium of the great sperm 

 whale should be overlooked ? 



For the matter of room or space, a phreno- 

 logist might keep shop in it, and light it up, if he 

 chose, with its own brains, and there point out 



