THE AMEKICAN WHALEMAN. 179 



the blood, and a constant formation of waste products, which 

 are returned to the blood, and conveyed by it to the lungs 

 and the kidneys," etc., etc. Thus the blood is regarded as 

 the common carrier of the animal economy, and the arteries 

 and veins are the canals through which this strange com- 

 merce is carried on. I would ask, How can this hypothesis 

 be applied to the case before us, in which such an enormous 

 and most elaborate structure conducts the building arid 

 wasting processes twenty-five feet distance from the pres- 

 ence of blood, and in the absence of any visible tubes for the 

 conduct of matter in form other than blood, from the stom- 

 ach to the distant junk and case? And by what means is 

 the temperature maintained uniform with the rest of the 

 body, which is shown to be more highly charged with blood 

 than the land animals ? 



The uses to the animal of this great reservoir of oil in the 

 case, and of oily matter throughout the head, is entirely un- 

 known. Most writers have been content to accept the hy- 

 pothesis that the formation acts as a buoy to lift the nostril 

 above the water, it being assumed that the light oily matter 

 preponderates in the head. But the fact is, the head is much 

 less buoyant than, the body, owing to the great proportion 

 of dense and heavy " white horse ;" and while the whale it- 

 self, when dead, floats on its side, the head turns, the spout- 

 hole down and the bony jaw upward, showing that the part 

 containing the sack of oil is the heaviest, and unfitted to 

 support the spout-hole above the water. May there not be 

 a connection between this reservoir of fatty matter and the 

 supposed power of the whale to sustain life for a prolonged 

 period beneath the surface of the sea? May not the vital 

 flame find sustenance from it during the whale's hibernation ? 

 You smile at the thought of hibernation in tropical seas. 

 But the presence of cold currents flowing from the poles 

 toward the equator have been demonstrated, and it is quite 



