THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 



board the ship. The illustrations show the positions of the 

 boats in the contest, and of the ships, and in cutting-in, etc. 

 Mr. Russell himself was a boat-steerer ; and, guided by sev- 

 eral years' experience, his artistic skill has embodied in the 

 small space of two pictures the most correct idea of whaling 

 which I have seen. 



The upper head of the sperm-whale is disproportionately 

 large, being nearly one-third the length and nearly one-half 

 the weight of the entire animal. The lower jaw, in its ex- 

 ternal form, is cylindrical and narrow as compared with its 

 length. It has from forty-seven to fifty-one teeth, there be- 

 ing always when the jaw is uninjured one tooth more on 

 one side than on the other. These teeth are conical in 

 shape, curved and hollowed at base in the growing whale, 

 but losing the hooked form and solidifying at the root in 

 the middle-aged. In the old they become much worn and 

 rounded at the end. In the old bull these teeth are often 

 found broken and shattered by desperate contests. The 

 lower jaw, when shut closely, fits into a deep groove in the 

 upper jaw, the teeth fitting into sockets. The head is near- 

 ly cylindrical where it joins the body, and just back of this 

 point is the greatest girth of the body; from this forward 

 the head flattens at the sides, and terminates in -a forehead 

 of a little less than the diameter of the body. The bot- 

 tom of this ponderous head is under - cut somewhat as 'the 

 stern or run of a ship. 



I am not a great naturalist, but I know what a whale is 

 not. What a whale is not, you will see in the figure given 

 by the learned professors of British science, Jameson and 

 Murray, so late as 1831. In this an irate monster is spout- 

 ing in an impossible manner, and has a chevaux-de-frise 

 bristling on his back, to impale the unhappy mariner who 

 is returning from a skyward flight in the shattered boat. 

 How could the British Government expect that any bounty 



