WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 311 



the skin you can bail it out with pitchers or pump it out till 

 it gets too cold, after which you do not know whether to lift 

 it in your hands or in a bucket. It is beautifully clear, no one 

 knows why it has this extraordinary spongy forepart to its 

 head. This sperm oil is chemically different from the oil of 



Head of a Sperm, showing Skull 



other whales ; it is more of the nature of a wax : the other 

 whales are of a fatty nature. It makes the finest lubricant 

 for modern machinery. 



The blow hole is on left side of this " case," the blow pipe 

 from lungs going through it. And the jet of steam is thrown 

 up two or three feet and forward, so a sperm's blast is easily 

 distinguished from that of the finner, which is bigger and 

 straight up, say to twenty or thirty feet, or possibly forty 

 feet, in the case of a large Blue whale. 



