40 The Mysticetus, or Right Whale 



explorer reaches the Pole or not, we know exactly the 

 conditions which obtain there. In any case, only six 

 hundred miles or so separate the farthest north of the 

 explorer from that apex of the earth known as the 

 North Pole, which when it is reached will certainly be 

 just the same dreary dismal expanse of hummocky ice 

 or frozen snow-covered land that we already know so 

 well. 



Where, then, does the Right Whale go in the winter? 

 We do not know, but an easy and plausible assumption 

 is that he hybemates beneath the ice as does the 

 alligator in the mud, the bear in his hollow tree, the 

 marmot, and the dormouse, not to speak of other 

 hybernators or winter sleepers. As an assumption 

 this must pass until we know, which does not seem 

 at all a likely thing to happen. 



The Right Whale of the Arctic Seas, Bowhead of 

 the North Pacific, is probably, individual for individual, 

 the largest of all God's creatures. But there is some 

 little doubt as to his being larger than the sperm whale, 

 because whalemen calculate the sizes of their gigantic 

 victims by the number of barrels of oil they yield. 

 Now the sperm whale, ranging temperate and tropical 

 seas, does not need, and therefore does not carry, a 

 great thickness of blubber over his flesh. True, the 

 reservoir of spermaceti in his head does something to 

 equalise this, but not enough. The greatest yield of 

 oil and spermaceti from any sperm whale that I have 

 been able to obtain any information about was sixteen 

 tons, while I have heard of several ceises of Bowhead 

 in the Behring Sea trying out nearly twenty-five, 

 blubber alone, since they have no spermaceti. Yet 

 I feel sure, judging by experience, that the sixteen-ton 

 sperm whale would be bulkier than the more thickly 

 clad Bowhead. However, let it go, it's a moot point, 



