This vast monster of the deep is one of the wonders of the world, or at
least of its mighty oceans. It is found chiefly in the more northern
seas, where its food, consisting of small molluscous and crustaceous
animals, but chiefly of the _clio borealis_, is found. Whales are often
found from fifty to sixty, and some of them from ninety to one hundred
feet in length, and from thirty to forty feet, and even more, in
circumference. The true whale is remarkable for the immense size of its
head, which constitutes a full third of the entire length of the animal.
The eyes are very small, and placed just above the angles of the mouth.
The external opening of the ears is scarcely perceptible. The pectoral
fins are of moderate size, and located about two feet behind the angles
of the mouth. The tail, or, more properly, the tail fin, consists of two
parts, or lobes, of immense strength, measuring, in a full-grown whale,
some twenty feet across, from tip to tip. It is wielded by muscles of
enormous power, and thus becomes a weapon of offense and defense for the
whale, as well as its chief means of locomotion. A single blow of the
tail is sufficient to cut the stoutest whaleboat in two, and to send its
fragments whirling through the air. The engraving gives a view of a
right whale about to be harpooned; while in the distance is another,
lashed to the ship for “cutting in,” and still another, which the
sailors, having killed, are towing in toward it. The whale fishery was
carried on by the Biscayans as early as the twelfth century; afterward
it was taken up by the Dutch and the English, and it now engages nearly
a tenth of the tunnage of the United States.