128 THE GREENLAND WHALE. 
elastic as caoutchouc, offering an admirable resistance to the force of the 
waves and the pressure of the water. In a large Whale the blubber will 
weigh thirty tons. 2 
The GREENLAND WHALE, NORTHERN WHALE, or RIGHT WHALE, as it 
is indifferently termed, is an inhabitant of the Northern Seas, where it is still 
found in great abund- 
ance, although the con- 
stant persecutions to 
which it has been sub- 
jected have consider- 
ably thinned its num- 
bers. 
This animal is, when 
fully grown, about sixty 
or seventy feet in 
length, and its girth 
about thirty or forty 
feet. Its colour is vel- 
vety black upon the 
upper part of the body, 
the fins, and the tail ; 
grey upon the junction 
of the tail with the 
body and the base of 
the fins, and white 
upon the abdomen and 
the fore-part of the 
THE WHALE.—(Balena mysticetus.) lower jaw. The velvety 
aspect of the body is 
caused by the oil which exudes from the epidermis, and aids in destroying 
the friction of the water. Its head is remarkably large, being one-third of 
the length of the entire bulk. The jaw opens very far back, and in a large 
Whale is about sixteen 
feet in length, seven 
feet wide, and ten or 
twelve feet in height, 
affording space, as has 
been quaintly remark- 
ed, for a jolly-boat and 
her crew to float in. 
The most curious 
part of the jaw and 
its structure is the 
remarkable substance 
which is popularly 
known by the name of 
whalebone. 
The whalebone, or 
baleen, is found in a 
: series of plates, thick 
SKULL OF GREENLAND WHALE, and solid at the inser- 
tion into the jaw, and 
splitting at the extremity into a multitude of hair-like fringes. On each 
side of the jaw there are more than three hundred of these plates, which in 
a fine specimen are about ten or twelve feet long, and eleven inches wide 
