THE SPERMACETI WHALE. 



431 



there is a rather large hump, which rises abruptly in front and tapers gradually towards the 

 tail. The color of the Cachalot is a blackish -gray, somewhat tinged with green upon the upper 

 portions of the body. Around the eyes and on the abdomen 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 proportion 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 



SPERMACETI WHALE.— Physeter macrocephalus. 



whalers technically called the "blanket," probably in allusion to its office in preserving the 

 animal heat. 



The spermaceti is almost peculiar to a few species of the genus Catodon, 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 that exist in the huge mass of tendinous 

 substance of which the head is chiefly composed. On reference to the skull of the Cachalot, 

 the reader will observe that it dips suddenly over the eyes, and then is greatly prolonged. 

 This portion of the skull is termed Neptune's chair by the sailors, and it is in Neptune's chair 

 that the spermaceti is placed. When the Whale is killed and towed to the ship's side, the 

 head is cut off and affixed to tackles for the purpose of siipporting it in a convenient position 

 for the extraction of this valuable substance. A large hole is cut in the top of the head, and a 

 number of sailors lower their buckets into the cavity and bale out the liquid matter. 



When first exposed to the air it has a clear, oily appearance, but after it has been sub- 

 jected to the action of the atmosphere for a few hours, the spermaceti begins to separate itself 



