HISTORY OF THE WHALE. 
11 
unfortunate men who become entangled in the folds. 
A captain of a New London ship was caught by two 
coils of the warp, one around his body, and another 
around his leg. He had the presence of mind imme- 
diately to seize his knife, and after a while succeeded 
in cutting himself loose. He was carried, however, 
to a great depth, and when he returned to the surface, 
' was almost exhausted. 
The whale, when roused to desperation, makes an 
onset with his mouth only. Then he crushes a boat 
to atoms, and the men escape by jumping into the sea. 
A sperm whale destroyed two boats of a Nantucket 
ship, and then attacked the ship ; but being obliged 
to turn over nearly on his hack to use the under jaw, 
with which he does execution, the vessel escaped. 
A whale, in attempting to escape, sometimes exerts 
prodigious strength, and is very dangerous. In 1812, 
a boat’s crew struck a whale near a cake of ice, and 
very soon made a signal to their companions for more 
line. While another boat was rowing to their assist- 
ance with the utmost speed, the harpooner was seen 
enveloped in smoke from the friction of the line, 
which drew the bow of the boat down to a level with 
the water. When the relief boat was within a hun- 
dred yards, the crew were seen to leap into the sea ;■ 
