178 SOUTH SEA FISHERY. 



We have seen that at one time they frequented the 

 shores of North America, and they are also found 

 in the Northern Pacific. Though not observed in 

 great troops, yet they are said to he sometimes 

 taken in Orkney and Shetland (Statistical Account, 

 v. 190), and they are occasionally stranded on the 

 British coasts. Thus Mr. Pennant states that a 

 large specimen was stranded on the coast of Norfolk, 

 which is particularly commemorated by Sir Thomas 

 Brown (Zoology, ii. 500) ; one came ashore, fifty- 

 two feet long, in 1689, at Limekilns in the Forth, 

 and is described by Sibbald; two others, each 

 measuring fifty-four feet, were in 1769 cast ashore 

 near the village of Cramond in the same Frith 

 (Statistical Account, i. 220) ; and one, sixty-three 

 feet long, was in 1756 stranded on the west of 

 Ross -shire: one, fifty-eight feet long, was stranded 

 on the Yorkshire coast, as noticed by Mr. Anderson 

 in the Trans, of the Cambridge Phil. Soc. for 1827; 

 seventeen were cast ashore in the Elbe in 1723, 

 half of which were males; and thirty-one, in 1784, 

 were stranded at one time in the Bay of Audierne 

 in Lower Brittany, nearly all of which were females. 

 (Fr. Cuvier's Hist. p. 268. 271.) It would thus 

 however appear they are, alive or dead, but rare in 

 this part of the world. 



On its introduction into commerce, spermaceti, to 

 which, when refined, the French have applied the 

 name of cetine, was chiefly employed in medicine, 

 in which its use is still continued. It has also been 

 freely used in the cosmetic art. Its Largest and most 



