[The 10th. | THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. A] 
Now this, it is true, is fortunately within the ken of civilized and 
scientific men; and, confessedly, no enormous ophidian or saurian 
carcases have éver been recognised on that shore. But the shore 
of Norway is, perhaps, the least favourable in the world for such 
a jetsam. Such a thing as a sand or shingle beach is _ scarcely 
known; the coast is almost exclusively what is called iron-bound ; 
the borders of the deeply indented fjords rise abruptly out of the 
sea, so that there is generally from fifty to three hundred fathoms’ 
depth of water within a boat’s length of the shore. How could a 
carcase or a skeleton be cast up here, even if it floated?” 
“But, secondly, as to facts. Is it true, that of all the larger 
oceanic animals we find the carcases or skeletons cast up on the 
shore? Is it true even of the Cefacea, whose blubber-covered bodies 
- invariably ensure their floating, and whose bones are so saturated 
with oil that they are but little heavier than water?” 
“In September 1825, a cetacean was stranded on the French 
coast, which was previously unknown to naturalists. It was so 
fortunate as to fall under the examination of so eminent a zoologist 
as De Blainville; and hence its anatomy was well investigated. It 
has become celebrated as the Toothless Whale of Havre (Aodon 
Daler). Yet no other example of this species is on record; and, 
but for this accident, a whale ¢nhabiting the British Channel 
would be quite unrecognised.” 
“Of another Whale (Diodon Sowerby), hkewise British, our 
entire knowledge resis on a single individual which was cast on 
shore on the Elgin coast, and was seen and described by the 
naturalist Sowerby.” 
“There is a species of sperm whale (Physe¢er ftursio) affirmed to 
be frequently seen about the Shetland Islands; a vast creature of 
sixty feet in length, and readily distinguishable from all other 
Cetacea by its lofty dorsal, and, according to old Sibbald, by 
other remarkable peculiarities in its anatomy. Yet no specimen of 
this huge creature has fallen under modern scientific observation ; 
and zoologists are not yet agreed among themselves whether the 
high-finned Cachelot is a myth or a reality!” 
“Mr. Rafinesque Schmaltz, a Sicilian naturalist, described a 
Cetacean which, he said, he had seen in the Mediterranean, pos- 
sessing two dorsals. The character was so abnormal that his state- 
ment was not received; but the eminent zoologists attached to 
one of the French exploring expeditions, — MM. Quoy and 
Gaimard, — saw a school of cetacea around their ship in the 
