THE CETACEANS. 97 



whales Buffering from extreme alarm and injury, but never 

 heard any sound from them beyond that attending an ordinary 

 respiration. 



The whalebone whales are either smooth-backs (Balsense), or 

 fin-backs (Balsenopteree), having a vertical fin rising from the 

 lower part of the back. To the former belongs the mighty 

 Greenland Whale {Balcena mysticetus)., the most bulky of 

 living animals, and of all cetaceans the most useful and im- 

 portant to man. Its greatest length, according to Scoresby, is 

 from sixty to seventy feet, and round the thickest part of its 

 body it measures from thirty to forty feet, but the incessant 

 persecutions to which it is subjected scarcely ever allow it to 

 attain its full growth. 



The whale being somewhat lighter than the medium in which it 

 swims, its weight may be ascertained with tolerable accuracy ; 

 and SGoresby tells us that a stout animal of sixty feet weighs 

 about seventy tons, allowing thirty to the blubber, eight or ten 

 to the bones, and thirty or thirty-two to the carcase. The light- 

 ness of the whale, which enables it to keep its crown, in which 

 the blow-hole is situated, and a considerable extent of back 

 above the water, without any effort or motion, is not only owing 

 to its prodigious case of fat, but also to the lightness of its 

 bones, most of which are very porous and contain large quantities 

 of fine oil ; an admirable provision of nature for the wants of a 

 creature destined to breathe the atmospheric air, and to skim its 

 food from the surface of the waters. 



The unsightly animal shows disproportion in all its organs. 

 While the tail fin measures twenty-four feet across, the pectoral 

 fins or paddles are no more than six feet long. The monstrous 

 head forms about the third of the whole body, and is furnished 

 with an equally monstrous mouth, which on opening exhibits a 

 cavity about the size of an ordinary ship's cabin. The leviathans 

 of the dry land, the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopo- 

 tamus, are provided with tusks and teeth corresponding to their 

 size — huge weapons fit for eradicating trees or crushing the bone- 

 harnessed crocodile ; but the masticatory implements of the giant 

 of the seas are scarcely capable of dividing the smallest food. 

 Instead of teeth, its enormous upper jaw is beset with about 500 

 laminse of whalebone, ranged side by side, two-thirds of an inch 

 apart, the thickness of blade included, and resembling a frame 



