f;shl3. 4.fil 



CHAP. III. 



OF THE WHALE PROPKULY SO CALLED, AND ITS VARIETIES. 



If we compare land animals, in respect to magnitude, with 

 those of the deep, they will appear contemptible in the compe- 

 tition. It is probable, indeed, that quadrupeds once existed 

 much larger than we find them at present. From the skeletons 

 of some that have been dug up at different times, it is evident 

 that there must have been terrestrial animals twice as large as 

 the elephant ; but creatures of such an immense bulk required a 

 pioportionable extent of ground for subsistence, and, by being 

 rivals with men for large territory, they must have been destroy- 

 ed in the contest. 



But it is not only upon land that man has exerted his power 

 of destroying the larger tribes of animated nature, he has extend- 

 ed his efforts even into the midst of the ocean, and has cut off 

 numbers of those enormous animals, that had perhaps existed for 

 ages. We now no longer hear of whales two hundred, and two 

 hundred and fifty feet long, which we are certain were often seen 

 about two centuries ago. They have all been destroyed by the 

 skill of mankind, and the species is now dwindled into a race of 

 dimiimtive animals, from thirty to about eighty feet long. 



The northern seas were once the region to which the greatest 

 of these animals resorted ; but so great has been the slaughter 

 of whales for more than two ages, that they begin to grow thin- 

 ner every day ; and those that are now found there, seem, from 

 their size, not to come to their full dimensions. The grcatert 

 whales resort to places where they have the least disturbance ; 

 to those seas that are on the opposite side of the globe, near the 

 south pole. In that part of the world there are still to be seen 

 whales that are above a hundred and sixty feet long ; and per- 

 liaps even longer might be found in those latitudes near the soulli 

 pole, to which we have not as yet ventured. 



Taking the whale, however, at the ordinary size of eighty feet 

 long and twenty feet high, what an enormous animated mass 

 must ic appear to the spectator ! With what amazement must 

 it strike him, to behold so great a creature gamboling in tlic deep, 

 with the case and agility of the smallest animal, and making its 



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