ORDER OF CETACEA. 
61 
further divisions have since been proposed, as additional species 
have been distinguished ; for it now appears that there are really 
very many kinds of these enormous Cetaceans, which are only 
beginning to be understood by naturalists who make an especial 
study of them. 
Some of the Rorquals are the longest of all known animals, 
attaining to more than a hundred feet in length, or, in other 
words, to about half the length of the London Monument. One 
of the most gigantic species (. Balcenoptera Indica ) inhabits the 
Indian Ocean, and there is a very early notice of this animal as 
observed at the northern extremity of the Arabian Sea, in the 
narrative of the famous voyage of Nearchus, the commander of 
Alexander’s fleet, which sailed from the Indus to the Persian 
Gulf, 327 b.c. Not only did the ancient navigator encounter a 
troop of these huge animals, but it would appear that they were 
at that time not unfrequently stranded on the coast of Mekran, 
where the Icthyophagi of that woodless region used their bones for 
building purposes. “ The generality of the people (as we are told 
by Arrian) live in cabins, small and stifling : the better sort only 
have houses constructed with the bones of Whales ; for Whales are 
frequently thrown up on the coast, and when the flesh is rotted 
off, they take the bones, making planks and doors of such as are 
fiat, and beams or rafters of the ribs or jaw-bones ; and many of 
these monsters are found fifty yards (?) in length. Strabo confirms 
this report of Arrian ; and adds, that the vertebrae or socket-bones 
of the back are formed into mortars, in which they pound their 
fish, and mix it up into a paste, with the addition of a little meal.”* 
In more recent times the bones of Whales have been used for 
building purposes on the shores of the Polar Sea, at the north- 
eastern extremity of Siberia. Thus Admiral Yon Wrangell re- 
marks that — “ At many places along this coast we saw the bones 
of Whales stuck upright in the ground ; our interpreter, and sub- 
sequently the Tschuktschi whom we met, said that they were the 
remains of the former dwellings of a stationary tribe. They 
appeared to have been of a better and more solid kind than are 
now used, and to have been partly sunk in the ground.” And 
again : — “ There are traditions which relate that two centuries 
ago the Onkilon occupied the whole of the coast from Cape 
* Vincent’s Voyage of Near chus, p. 267. 
