10 



So that there is no creature in the world so great or 

 strong so as to be exempt from calamities I 



The Whalebone-whale is about 70 feet long, and 

 very bulky, having scales and no fins, but only one on 

 each side, from five to eight feet long. 



The Spermaceti whale is much of the same dimen- 

 sions. The spermaceti oil lies in a great trunk, four 

 or five feet deep, and ten or twelve feet long, near the 

 whole length, breadth, and depth of the head. It 

 seems to be no other than the brain. Not but some 

 other parts of the fish yield an oil, but not so good as 

 that in the trunk. The care of their young is re. 

 tnarkable : while they carry them under water they 

 often rise for the benefit of the air. Whenever they 

 are chased or wounded, as long as they have sense, 

 anc} perceive life in their young, they will not leave 

 them, and if in their flying the young one drops oft", 

 the dam comes about, and passing underneath takes 

 it again. 



Whales are gregarious, being sometimes found a 

 hundred in a swarm, and are great travellers. Ii* 

 autumn the whalebone-whales go westward ; in spring 

 eastward again. The several kind of whales do not 

 mix with each other, but each keep by themselves. 



Their wonderful strength lies chiefly in the tail. A 

 boat has b,een cat down from the top to the bottom 

 by the tail of a whale, and the clap-boards entirely 

 splintered, though the gunnel on the top was of tough 

 wood. Another has ,had the stern-post, three inches 

 thick, cut oft* smooth without so much as shattering 

 the boat, or drawing the nails of the boards. 



It is commonly supposed that all fishes are mute, as 

 well as void of hearing. But a late author says, there 

 is one kind of whale, that when they are struck roar 

 so loud a* to be heard two miles, lie likewise asserts 

 that some of them have hearing, as have frogs, snakes, 

 and all the lizard-kind, though they have not the 

 usual outward apparatus of hearing; but they have 

 the auujtory passage by which sound is conveyed; ami 



