BOOK OP NATURE LAID OPEN. 141 



. its amazing bulk, this creature must not be consi- 

 dered as a huge unwieldy mass ; for, according to 

 La Cepede, it swims at the rate of thirty-three feet 

 in a Second, and it is computed that it might circum- 

 navigate the globe, in the direction of the equator, in 

 forty seven days, even allowing it to rest by night 

 during that time! It is believed to be extremely 

 long lived; and the method of catching these huge 

 animals is said to be one of the boldest enterprizes 

 of man. As the whale fishing has, however, been 

 so fully described in a variety of publications, within 

 the reach of the greater part of our readers, we shall 

 pass it over for the present. But, large as the whale 

 is, what is its size in comparison with the Kraken ? 

 if such an animal exists; which is said to be " a mile 

 and a half in circumference ; that, when it appears 

 above the water, it resembles a parcel of small isl- 

 ands and sand-banks, on which fish disport them- 

 selves, and sea-weeds grow ;" and that, " when he 

 sinks, which he does gradually, a dangerous swell 

 succeeds, and a kind of whirlpool is actually formed 

 in the water." 



Far from being disposed to set bounds to the power 

 of the Almighty, by denying the possibility of the 

 existence of such an anirr>al, we w r ould conclude in 

 the words of Goldsmith, that " to believe all that has 

 been said of those animals would be too credulous, 

 and to reject the possibility of their existence, would 

 be a presumption unbecoming mankind." 



In the internal conformation of its parts, and in a 

 few of the external ones of the Whale, there is such 



