184 NIMROD OF THE SEA ; OR, 



as seen from the boat or the deck of a vessel. When the 

 whale is at rest in a calm sea, with the nose above water, the 

 spout is invisible. Thus a ship may sometimes approach 

 close to the whale without its being discovered from the 

 mast-head, the exhibition of its flukes, as it sounds, being the 

 first indication of it. 



The breathing-pipe of a large sperm-whale is thirty feet 

 long, and twelve inches in diameter, and the misty cloud of 

 its spout enlarges from this size to four or five feet at its 

 widest part, passing along the surface of the sea some eight 

 or ten feet. When this spout is thrown into the boat and 

 strikes the sailors, which is not seldom, it feels like spray, in 

 density proportionate to the depth of the nose at the time of 

 blowing. There is but a slight sound attending prolonged 

 respiration when the whale is at rest ; but when frightened, 

 or running, the whale makes a rushing sound, sometimes 

 like a snort. I am of opinion that the inspiration does not 

 occupy one-tenth the time required in the expiration; in- 

 deed, it is instantaneous in the running whale ; yet the short- 

 er process is silent, and the longer noisy. How to account 

 for this ? Naturalists are greatly divided regarding the spout 

 of the whales, and have exhausted ingenious theories to show 

 that the spout is less an act of breathing than a means of get- 

 ting rid of the superfluous water which enters the mouth with 

 the food. "This w r ater," they inform us, "is, by a most in- 

 genious contrivance, forced into the nasal cavities while the 

 animal performs the act of swallowing ; then the forcible 

 contraction of the muscles surrounding the passage sends it 

 out in a jet." Scholarly men contrive industriously for na- 

 ture, and poets sing, 



"While spouting whales, projecting watery columns, 

 That turned to arches at their height, and seemed 

 The skeletons of crystal palaces 

 Built on the blue expanse." 



