HARPOONING LIFE INSIDE A WHALE. 183 



they are shaped like cones, which fit into the orifice like corks in the neck of a bottle, and the 

 greater the pressure the tighter they hold. The most surprising fact in the whale, probably, is 

 the power of descending to enormous depths below the surface of the sea, and sustaining that 

 almost inconceivable pressure of the superincumbent water. On one occasion which fell under 

 Mr. Scoresby's own observation a whale was struck from a boat. The animal instantly 

 descended, dragging down with him a rope nearly one mile long. Having let out this much of 

 the rope, the situation of the boat's crew became critical. Either they must have cut the line, 

 and submitted to a very serious loss, or have run the risk of being dragged under water by the 

 whale. The men were desired to retire to the stern, to counterbalance the pulls of the whale, 

 which dragged the bow down sometimes to within an inch of the water. In this dangerous 

 dilemma the boat remained some time, vibrating up and down with the tugs of the monster, 

 but never moving from the place where it lay when the harpoon was first thrown. This fact 

 proves that the whale must have descended at once perpendicularly, as had he advanced in any 

 direction he must have pulled the boat along with him. Mr. Scoresby and the crew were 

 rescued by the timely arrival of another boat furnished with fresh ropes and harpoons. A 

 whale when struck will dive sometimes to a depth of 800 fathoms ; and as the surface of a 

 large animal may be estimated at 1,500 square feet, at this depth it will have to sustain a 

 pressure equal to 211,000 tons. The transition from that which it is exposed to at the surface, 

 and which may be taken at about 1,300 tons, to so enormous an increase, must be productive 

 of the utmost exhaustion. 



Strange incidents are related of harpooning. On September 24th, 1864, as the Alexander, 

 belonging to Dundee, was steaming about in Davis's Straits, a whale of about twelve tons was 

 observed not far distant from her. Boats were put out, and the crew secured the animal. 

 When they cleansed it, they found embedded in its body, two or three inches beneath the skin, 

 a piece of a harpoon about eighteen inches long ; on the one side were engraved the words 

 "Traveller," Peterhead, and on the other, "1838." This vessel was lost in 185G, in the 

 Cumberland Straits whale-fishery; it is therefore clear that the harpoon must have remained 

 in the animal from that time. 



A sailor gives the following description of sleeping inside a whale; not, however, 

 quite as Jonah may have done. He says : * " We were on a little expedition in the 

 long-boat one voyage, and we had to encamp for the night with as much comfort as 

 our scant means would afford. The shore was terrible for its wildness and desolation it 

 was indeed lonely, sad, and sandy, but what was strange and welcome, was, great carcases 

 of whales, stranded like wrecks on the far-reaching shore, in some cases the backbone 

 holding together like a good keel and the great ribs still round, giving you an idea of an 

 elongated hogshead without the staves. We landed for the night, unbent our sails and 

 stretched them over the bleached ribs of a whale's skeleton, and after supper took a 

 comfortable sleep under the most curious roof-tree I ever rested under/' This was on 

 the north-west coast of Africa; and the sailor came to the conclusion that whales come 

 ashore to die. "And to my mind," says he, "it is as poetical as it is welcome. I like 



* From an article entitled " Shipmates I have Known," in The Shipwrecked ^Mariner : Journal of the 

 Shipwrecked Mariners' Society. 



