502 CONCLUSIONS. 
narrow in proportion to the throat: evidently the animal had con- 
tracted its neck , so that this latter grew much thicker (69), about two 
feet in diameter (150), about three feet in circumference (69), at 
least three feet in circumference (29), about as thick as a ten 
gallon keg (92), about six feet thick (148). 
The neck is somewhat smaller than the head (31), as is also 
stated in other accounts: smaller than the head (109), much thinner 
than the head (91), comparatively narrow (148), and may be two 
and a half feet in circumference (48), just behind the head sixteen 
inches thick (118), about the thickness of a man’s waist (124), 
about two feet in diameter (149), or about four feet thick (148). 
The thickness of the animal has commonly been compared with 
that of different objects, a circumstance which makes it difficult 
to fix the true diameter. Moreover it is in many instances difficult 
to make out whether the animal’s neck, just behind the head, is 
meant by the observer, or the animal’s chest or breast, which is 
the thickest part of the trunk. For the animal generally swims in 
such a way that a little part of its back rises above the surface 
of the water, completely hiding its thickest part and its flappers, 
so that it makes the impression to be a serpentine animal without 
any appendages, and of a uniform size. So the animal is said to 
be ten or twelve inches thick (147), about twelve inches (113), 
about fourteen inches (102), fifteen inches (19), as thick as a half- 
barrel (89, 41, 44, 48, 63), as thick as a common firkin (63), 
about twenty two inches (17), as thick as a barrel (84, 41, 80), 
as thick as a man’s body (46), as thick as a wine barrel (2, 85), 
as thick as a stout man (94), as thick as a barrel of two hogsheads 
(12), three feet (17), as thick as a sloop’s boom (24), three to four 
feet in circumference (25), as thick as a full-grown ox (79), about 
two feet in diameter (92), inconsiderable (95), as thick as a large 
horse (109), he is the thickest just behind the head (103), several 
ells (115), as thick as our main mast (135), thirty feet from its 
head-end the body seemed about as thick as the ship’s long-boat 
(126), it appeared about seven feet across the broadest part of the 
back (121), at the shoulder about fifteen to twenty feet (148), the 
shoulder was the thickest part of the body, about twenty feet (122). 
The Zatl-root had, on one occasion, a diameter of four feet 
(146), but as it is generally hidden under water, it is only in a 
few instances that it was actually observed. 
The tail ends in a point (fig. 19, fig. 20), and consequently is 
mostly said to resemble that of a serpent or snake. It is also 
