ISC GREAT MYSTICETE. 



about two or three men's length, from whence 

 may be conjectured how large the animal must 

 be. On one side, all in a row, there are two hun- 

 dred and fifty pieces of whalebone, and as many 

 on the other; making in all five hundred, and 

 there are still many more, for the cutters let the 

 least of all remain, because they cannot easily 

 come at it to cut it out, on account of the meet- 

 ing of the two lips, where the space is very nar- 

 row. The whalebone is in a flat row, one piece 

 by the other, somewhat bending within, and to- 

 wards the lips every where like a half-moon. It 

 is broad at the top, where it sticketh fast to the 

 upper lip, every where overgrown with hard white 

 sinews towards the root, so that between two 

 pieces of whalebone you may put your hand. 

 These white sinews are of an agreeable smell, 

 break very easily, and may be boiled and eaten. 

 Where the whalebone is broadest, as underneath 

 by the root, there groweth small whalebone, the 

 other greater, as you see small and large trees one 

 among another in a wood. I believe the small 

 whalebone doth not grow bigger, as one might 

 think that some of the great pieces thereof might 

 come out, and that so this small whalebone might 

 grow up again in the room thereof, or as in chil- 

 dren, the hair grows again when cut ; but it is not 

 *o ; for it is from one end to the other of an equal 

 thickness, and full of long jacks, like horses hair. 

 The whalebone is underneath narrow and pointed, 

 and all overgrown with hair, that it may not hurt 

 that which is young ; but without the whalebone 



