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Updated: May 12, 2025
Yet we have seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as available to the systematizer as those external ones already enumerated.
In connection with this appellative of "Whalebone whales," it is of great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that those marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents.
But there his science came to a halt. Classifying was everything to him, so he knew nothing else. Well versed in the theory of classification, he was poorly versed in its practical application, and I doubt that he could tell a sperm whale from a baleen whale! And yet, what a fine, gallant lad! For the past ten years, Conseil had gone with me wherever science beckoned.
A whale will weigh about as many tons as it is feet long in other words, this seventy-three foot whale weighed probably seventy ton and from the blubber we tried out thirty tons of oil nearly half its weight in the tanks beside the baleen! We had been sailing in the wake of the big school of whales we had spied when we killed the baleener.
Three or four do not hesitate to grapple the largest baleen whales, who become paralysed with terror frequently evince no efforts to escape. Instances have occurred where a band of orcas laid siege to whales in tow, and although frequently lanced and cut with boat spades, made away with their prey. Inclined to believe it rarely attacks larger cetaceans. Possessed of great swiftness.
The lower mandible of the shoveller-duck is furnished with lamellae of equal length with these above, but finer; and in being thus furnished it differs conspicuously from the lower jaw of a whale, which is destitute of baleen. On the other hand, the extremities of these lower lamellae are frayed into fine bristly points, so that they thus curiously resemble the plates of baleen.
But it had better still. It had Ned Land, the King of Harpooners. Gifted with uncommon manual ability, Ned Land was a Canadian who had no equal in his dangerous trade. Dexterity, coolness, bravery, and cunning were virtues he possessed to a high degree, and it took a truly crafty baleen whale or an exceptionally astute sperm whale to elude the thrusts of his harpoon.
In one respect this is the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or baleen; and the oil specially known as "whale oil," an inferior article in commerce.
It is now so rare that it is not worth while to send a ship out for the purpose of hunting it, and it will probably never recover its numbers. An idea of its value and former abundance may be formed from the fact that between 1669 and 1778 it yielded to 1,400 Dutch vessels about 57,000 individuals, of which the baleen and oil produced a money value of four million pounds sterling.
Meanwhile that monstrous herd kept coming closer. It had seen the baleen whales and was preparing to attack. You could tell in advance that the sperm whales would be victorious, not only because they were better built for fighting than their harmless adversaries, but also because they could stay longer underwater before returning to breathe at the surface.
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