p. 716 | About Whales

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 45.

About Whales.

A FULL-GROWN Greenland or "right" whale is enormous, his mouth alone being fifteen or sixteen feet in length. His full length varies from sixty to seventy-five feet. The tail is about twenty-five feet broad. His weight is from sixty to eighty tons. Notwithstanding the great size of the whale, his throat is not larger than that of a man, and he has no teeth at all, but, instead, a fibrous structure in his mouth called "baleen." These resemble the barbs or edges of a feather, and completely fill the back part of the mouth. When he feeds, the vast mouth is opened, and he swims along with a great flood of water passing through his mouth, which escapes at the sides. The small animals and insects in the sea are in this way caught on this baleen, which serves as a strainer—made on purpose, of course. The body is covered, just under the skin, with a layer of fat, or blubber, from one to two feet thick, and weighing—in a large fat one—from thirty to forty tons. This blubber serves a threefold purpose—keeping the whale warm in very cold water, of making his body lighter than it would otherwise be, and of resisting the pressure of the water in the great depths to which the animal often descends.

Naturalists have computed the age of the whale by the transverse lines on the plates of the baleen in his mouth, and conclude that they sometimes attain to the age of 1,000 years. It inhabits the seas of the northern world, and abounds chiefly in the Arctic regions. It is occasionally seen by vessels passing from New York to Liverpool. The eyes of a large whale are not larger than the eyes of an ox, and are situated nearly behind the angles of the mouth, for the obvious purpose of enabling him to see the insects upon which he feeds. His sense of sight is very acute in the water. He has two small blow-holes on the top of his head, from which he spurts water up in the air—a performance which may be seen by the whalers for miles. The mother whale is said to display great affection for her offspring, of which whale-fishers take cruel advantage, harpooning the young (of little value itself) in order to secure the mother. When the mother suckles her calf she comes to the top of the water and rolls lazily from side to side, that she and the young one may breathe, turn about. Whales ordinarily swim a few feet below the surface, coming to the top to breathe at intervals of eight or ten minutes. When they rise to breathe they stay on the surface about two minutes, and draw from six to eight good full breaths, when they go down again. They often stand on their heads and flap the top of the water with the tail, making a noise which may be heard two or three miles. They do not go in schools like fish, but are generally found alone or in pairs, except when numbers of them are attracted to particular feeding grounds, as is sometimes the case in the bays and inlets of northern coasts.

Whale fishing is, and has been for ages, pursued in much the same manner by all classes of men, civilized and uncivilized, and is attended with great danger. When a ship arrives in the vicinity of a whaling ground, a watchman is placed in the rigging of the vessel to keep a lookout for whales spouting, and as soon as one is discovered, the smaller boats are lowered, and a competition at once takes place among the subdivisions of the crew to see who will reach the whale first. The harpooner is ready as soon as the boat is sufficiently near the whale to plunge with all his strength the harpoon

deep into the coveted prize; the boat is instantly backed out of the way, and the whale plunges in astonishment and terror to a great depth, sometimes carrying as much as 1,200 feet of line. It remains below from twenty to thirty minutes, when it rises again. The boats hasten to it, and another harpoon is struck into its vitals. But this time, instead of diving as before, it strikes violently with its tail, or, may be, plunges under the boat to destroy, if possible, its enemies. Sometimes a boat containing a dozen men is thrown by an upward stroke of the whale's tail high into the air, and turned over and over like a stick thrown by a boy into the top of a tree. The poor whale, however, soon begins to spout blood through the blow-holes, and is shortly pierced by the fatal lance. Sometimes it dies with a terrific struggle, lashing the water, which is dyed with blood, into a foam for 100 yards around. It not unfrequently happens that instead of dying at the top of the water the whale descends and does not rise again, so that it is lost to the whaler. A harpoon-gun and harpoon used by Lieutenant Greely's party was on exhibition at New Orleans at the world's fair, last year, and consisted of a short bar of iron with a barbed spear at one end and a line attached to the other. This was fired from a swivel cannon mounted on the end of a whale-boat.—Sel.