410 ON THE 



latitudes, and sometimes is even stranded upon 

 the shores of this country. It is distinguished 

 from all the other tribes, by having no teeth; but 

 as a substitute, the upper jaw is lined with a 

 thick, horny substance, (the whalebone of the 

 shops) the numerous lamince of which, are so ar- 

 ranged, as to prevent the food, when received 

 into the mouth, from being passed out again ; and 

 as the oesophagus, or Gullet, is only a few inches 

 in diameter, the smallest substances, as s^a blub- 

 ber, and other sea insects, or at most very dimi- 

 nutive fish, can only be swallowed ; and upon 

 such apparently scanty diet is this immense ani- 

 mal exclusively fed. And yet, no animal exists, 

 whose blood vessels are so full or so capacious 

 in proportion, as the Common Whale. The aorta, 

 or chief artery, Dr. Paley states, is larger in the 

 bore than the main pipe of the late Waterworks 

 at London Bridge ; and the water roaring in its 

 passage through that pipe, is inferior in its impe- 

 tus and velocity to the blood gushing from the 

 section of a Whale. 



Dr. Hunter, upon dissecting one of these ani- 

 mals, ascertained, that the aorta measured a foot 

 in diameter; and he mentions, that through this 

 tube, fifteen gallons of blood were thrown out of 

 the heart at each stroke ; which, allowing only 

 twenty pulsations in a minute, would cause 

 eight thousand hogsheads of blood to pass 

 through the heart in twenty-four hours ; a cir- 



