THE SPERMACETI WHALE. ' 159 



tains the captured animals, which are entangled in the whalebone, and 

 swallows them at its ease. 



The Whale is an animal of very great value to civilized and to sav- 

 age men. The oil which is procured in great quantities from its blub- 

 ber and other portions of its structure is almost invaluable to us, while 

 the bones and baleen find their use in every civilized land. To the 

 natives of the polar regions, however, the Whale is of still greater 

 value, as they procure many necessaries of life from various parts of 

 its body, eat the flesh, and drink the oil. Repulsive as such a diet 

 may appear to us, who live in a comparatively warm region, it is an 

 absolute necessity in those ice-bound lands, such oleaginous diet being 

 needful in order to keep up the heat of the body by a bountiful sup- 

 ply of carbon. 



As far as is yet known, the Greenland Whale produces only a sin- 

 gle cub at a birth. When first born, the young Whale is without the 

 baleen, depending upon its mother for its subsistence like any other 

 young mammal. The maternal Whale keeps close to her oflTspring 

 until the baleen is grown, and does not forsake it until it is capable of 

 supporting itself. The young Whales, before the baleen has developed 

 itself, are technically termed " suckers," and when the baleen is six 

 feet in length they are called by the name of "size." 



The Cachalot, or Spermaceti Whale, is one of the largest of the 

 Whales, an adult male — or " old bull," as it is called by the whalers — 

 measuring from seventy to eighty feet in length, and thirty feet in cir- 

 cumference. The head is enormously long, being almost equal to one- 

 third of the total length. Upon the back there is rather a large hump, 

 which rises abruptly in front and tapers gradually toward the tail. The 

 color of the Cachalot is a blackish gray, somewhat tinged with green 

 upon the upper portions of the body. Round the eyes and on the ab- 

 domen it is of a grayish white. 



This species is chiefly notable on account of the valuable substances 

 which are obtained from its body, including oil and spermaceti. The 

 oil is obtained from the blubber, which is not very thick in this animal, 

 being only fourteen inches in depth on the breast and eleven inches on 

 the other parts of the body, and is therefore not so abundant in pro- 

 portion to the size of the animal as that which is extracted from the 

 Greenland Whale. Its superior quality, however, compensates fully 

 for its deficiency in quantity. The layer of blubber is by the whalers 

 technically called the " blanket," probably in allusion to its ofiSce in 

 preserving the animal heat. 



The spermaceti is almost peculiar to a few species of the genus Ca- 

 todon, and is obtained as follows : 



The enormous and curiously-formed head is the great receptacle of 

 the spermaceti, which lies, in a liquid oily state, in two great cavities 



