United States or Wallis and Futuna ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


If we venture to suggest a doubt as to the intimacy of the connection between a whale's blow-holes and the History of the World, he comes down upon us with the most withering denunciations as wrongheaded sceptics who won't even believe what is printed and in a Dutch history too!

All the superfluous water is rejected by the pharynx, and springs up in spouts of fifteen or twenty feet high, through the nostrils, i.e. the nasal openings, sometimes called "vents," sometimes "blow-holes," which are pierced exactly at the top of the head.

Next Morning they said that Lutie had Blow-Holes in her Voice; that she hit the Key only once during the Evening, and then fell off backward; that she was a Ham, and her Dress didn't fit her, and she lacked Stage Presence. They expressed Surprise that she should be attempting to Sing when any bright Girl could learn to pound a Type-Writer in Four Weeks.

It is the exhaling of the old stock of air, when he brings the "blow-holes," as seamen call the outlets of his respiratory organs, to the surface, that forces the water upward, and forms the "spouts," which usually indicate to the whalers the position of their game.

The girl, closely attended by Sailor, sprang lightly upon the grating, and following with her eyes Leslie's pointing finger, gazed down into the blue, transparent depths, where she beheld the enormous black bulk of a large sperm whale, lying right up alongside the brig so close to her, indeed, that his starboard fin was right under her bilge, about a third of his length from his blow-holes aft toward his tail showing shiny as polished ebony, some six inches above water, while his ponderous tail stretched away some forty feet or more beyond the taffrail, where it could be clearly seen gently rising and falling to enable him to keep pace with the brig.

How many tarpon, barracuda, amberjack, and tuna I have lost on the Atlantic seaboard just because the boat could not be turned in time! Clemente Island is a mountain of cliffs and caves. It must be of volcanic origin, and when the lava rose, hot and boiling, great blow-holes formed, and hardened to make the caves. It is an exceedingly beautiful island.

For some time we kept dodging round this fellow; but he was so old and wise, that he always turned his head to us, and prevented us from getting a chance to lance him. At last he turned a little to one side, and the captain plunged the lance deep into his vitals. "Ha! that's touched his life," cried Tom, as a stream of blood flew up from his blow-holes, a sure sign that he was mortally wounded.

Whales seldom stay more than an hour under water, and when they come up to breathe, they discharge the last breath they took through their nostrils or blow-holes, mixed with large quantities of water, which they have taken in while feeding. But the most remarkable point of difference between the whale and fishes of all kinds is, that it suckles its young.

Maurice was especially credited with the cetacean's discovery, because, when he noticed the spout of spray the animal threw up from his blow-holes in the distance, he surprised everybody by calling out that he could see one of the Crystal Palace fountains getting much laughed at, as might have been expected, for the naive announcement.

This island is volcanic in origin and structure, and its great caves have been made by blow-holes in hot lava. Erosion has weathered slope and wall and crag. For the most part these slopes and walls are exceedingly hard to climb. The goat trails are narrow and steep, the rocks sharp and ragged, the cactus thick and treacherous.