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Of late years a single large Greenland whale would bring £900 for its whalebone and £300 for its oil. These two great Right whales having been practically exterminated, the merciless hunt has now been turned on to the wilder and less valuable Finback whales or Finners. In these days of steam and electric light the Arctic night is robbed of its terrors, and the whale chase goes on very fast.
But the 'finners, which are still fairly common, include the 'sulphurs, among which there have been specimens far exceeding any authentic sperms or 'rights. Even the humpbacks and common finbacks, both well known in Canadian waters, occasionally surpass the average size of sperms and 'rights. But the sulphur is probably the only kind of whale which sometimes grows to a hundred feet and more.
It will be necessary to enter more at large than in my preceding volumes into the resources of Canada, and, for this end, Geology and other scientific subjects must be introduced; but, as I dislike exceedingly that heavy and gaudy veil of learning, that embroidered science, with which modern taste conceals those secrets of Nature which have been so partially unfolded, I shall not have frequent recourse to absurd Greek derivations, which are very commonly borrowed for the occasion from technical dictionaries, or lent by a classical friend; but, whenever they must occur, the dictionary shall explain them, for I really think it beneath the dignity of the lights of modern Geology to talk as they do about the Placoids and the Ganoids, as the first created fishlike beings, and of the Ctenoids and the Cycloids as the more recent finners.
Land was left on the starboard at a distance of about fifteen miles; the mountains seemed tinged with a red-coloured bistre. During the evening, several whales of the finners species, which have fins on their backs, came playing about in the midst of the ice-trails, throwing out air and water from their blow-holes.
They were all right whales, you must know, and finners, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted sea unicorns with long ivory horns. But the sperm whales are such raging, ramping, roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother Carey let them in, there would be no more peace in Peacepool.
They were all right whales, you must know, and finners, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and spotted sea- unicorns with long ivory horns. But the sperm whales are such raging, ramping, roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother Carey let them in, there would be no more peace in Peacepool.
We saw very large flocks of kittiwakes, some of the whales called finners, and, as we supposed, a few also of the black kind, together with multitudes of porpoises. On the morning of the 24th, notwithstanding the continuance of a favourable breeze, we met, in the latitude of 58½°, so heavy a swell from the north-eastward as to make the ship labour violently for four-and-twenty hours.
The Rorquals, or "Finners," have smaller heads and mouths; their whalebone is so short as to be valueless, but they grow to even greater size than the Right whales and are found on our own coasts and all over the world. The Humpback whale is one of these "Finners," distinguished by its excessively long flippers and huge bulk. The Biscay whale was the first of these great creatures to be hunted.
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