183 NIMROD OF THE SEA; OB, 



to throw the nose above the surface of the water for the 

 purpose of breathing, out of the reach of the wash of the sea. 

 I am unable to give you the anatomical detail of the wonder- 

 ful propeller, but can bear testimony to its beauty in curves, 

 and its perfect mechanical form. It has a hardness almost 

 of iron, with elasticity greater than steel ; and urged by a 

 thousand horse-power, it becomes the terror of the puny 

 bipeds in their fragile boats. 



The only evidence we possess of whales signaling by sound 

 is in the practice often observed of " lobtailing." In doing 

 this, the whale places itself perpendicularly in the watei^ 

 head downward, and, with its enormous tail in the air, it will 

 swing from side to side, sweeping a radius of thirty feet with 

 awful violence, the cannon-like concussions of which may be 

 heard for many miles, while the sea is churned into a mound 

 of snowy foam, and the air is filled with a cloud of spray. 

 Our observation did not lead to the belief, however, that this 

 deep tolling of the ocean-bell was intended as a tocsin, but 

 rather as mere frisky play, inasmuch as we could never no- 

 tice that other whales paid any attention to the seeming 

 signal. " Breaching " is common to all varieties of whales. 

 The whale rises vertically from the water with such velocity 

 that it will project about three-fourths of its length into the 

 air, and, falling on its sides, will create a great pile of white 

 water. This may be seen from the mast-head eight or ten 

 miles in the case of sperm-whales. 



When a sperm-whale " sounds," it first lifts the forward 

 parts a few feet out of the water, giving a strong spout, and 

 then dipping the nose, it rounds the back in a high arch, and 

 revolves as on an axis. Rounding higher until the hump 

 tops the arch, it lifts the flukes without any spray, and 

 throws them aloft twenty-five feet, the next moment quietly 

 disappearing in a perpendicular descent. In the act the sea 

 is scarcely rippled, and the wake left scarcely exceeds the 



