THE SPERMACETI WHALE. 
431 . 
there is a rather large hump, which rises abruptly in front and tapers gradually towards the 
tail. The color of the Cachalot is a blackish -gray, somewhat tinged with green upon the upper 
portions of the body. Around the eyes and on the abdomen it is of a grayish- white. 
This species is chiefly notable on account of the valuable substances which are obtained 
from its body, including oil and spermaceti. The oil is obtained from the blubber, which is 
not very thick in this animal, being only fourteen inches in depth on the breast and eleven 
inches on the other parts of the body, and is therefore not so abundant in proportion to the 
size of the animal as that which is extracted from the Greenland Whale. Its superior quality, 
however, compensates fully for its deficiency in quantity. The layer of blubber is by the 
SPEKMACETI WHALE .— Physeter macrocephalus. 
whalers technically called the “blanket,” probably in allusion to its office in preserving the 
animal heat. 
The spermaceti is almost peculiar to a few species of the genus Catodon, and is obtained 
as follows. 
The enormous and curiously formed head is the great receptacle of the spermaceti, which 
lies in a liquid, oily state, in two great cavities that exist in the huge mass of tendinous 
substance of which the head is chiefly composed. On reference to the skull of the Cachalot, 
the reader will observe that it dips suddenly over the eyes, and then is greatly prolonged. 
This portion of the skull is termed Neptune’ s chair by the sailors, and it is in Neptune’s chair 
that the spermaceti is placed. When the Whale is killed and towed to the ship’s side, the 
head is cut off and affixed to tackles for the purpose of supporting it in a convenient position 
for the extraction of this valuable substance. A large hole is cut in the top of the head, and a 
number of sailors lower their buckets into the cavity and bale out the liquid matter. 
When first exposed to the air it has a clear, oily appearance, but after it has been sub- 
jected to the action of the atmosphere for a few hours, the spermaceti begins to separate itself 
