84 Captain Scoresby on the Size qf the Greenland Whale. 
an animal remarkable for its minuteness, he is inclined to com- 
pare it with something still more minute ; — if remarkable for iisp 
bigness, with something fully larger. If the animal inhabits an 
element where he cannot examine it, of is seen under any cir- 
cumstances which prevent the possibility of his determining its 
dimensions, his decision -will certainly be in that extreme which 
excites the most interest. Thus, when a whale has first been 
seen by any voyager, within a sufficiently short distance, we 
find him generally comparing it to a mountain,” a floating 
island,” or at least to the size of his ship. But, when he has 
happened to express himself as if the whale were longer than his 
ship, any author who followed him would conceive himself jus- 
tified in calculating that, as his ship, judging from its known 
size, was 100 or 120 feet in length, the whale the voyager de- 
scribes must have been 150 or 200 feet. This error would be 
the more easily committed two or three centuries back, when 
we know that whales were usually viewed with superstitious- 
dread, and their magnitude and powers, in consequence, highly 
exaggerated. And errors of this kind having a tendency to in- 
crease rather than correct each other, from the circumstance of 
each writer on the subject being influenced by a similar bias, the 
most gross and extravagant results are at length obtained. In 
this way I conceive the erroneous opinions which prevail as to 
the magnitude of cetaceous animals may be accounted for. 
Authors, we find, of the first respectability in the present 
age, giving, a length of 80 to 100 feet or upwards to the Mys- 
ticetus, and remarking, with unqualified assertion, that when 
the captures were less frequent, and the animals had sufficient 
time to attain their full growth, specimens were found of 150 to 
200 feet in length, or even longer ; and some ancient natura- 
hsts, indeed, have gone so far as to assert, that whales had been 
seen of above 900 feet in length. 
In a modern work of high literary character the following pas- 
sage occurs : 
" Individuals of this species (Balaena' Mysticetus) are often 
caught that measure about 60 feet in length, and nearly 40 feet 
in circumference : and we are informed, on very credible autho- 
rity, that whales of at least twice these dimensions have for- 
merly been taken. To this latter size we must at present liniit our 
belief, though ancient naturalists have given accounts of whales 
above 900 feet long. We are, however, disposed to think, that 
those writers who discredit the accounts of voyagers and historians 
