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The whale-bone is placed in two rows in the mouth, and is used instead of teeth, to masticate the food, and to catch the minute animals floating in the water on which it feeds. Each side of bone consists of upwards of three hundred laminae, the interior edges of which are covered with a fringe of hair. Ten or twelve feet is the average size.
And equally fallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding with them, hence that species also is declining.
I remember once, in a man-of-war, falling in with a dead whale in a perfect calm. We towed it alongside, but so ignorant was everybody on board of natural history, that no one knew where the whale-bone was to be found.
The American woman believes that a narrow waist enhances her beauty, and the corset-maker works upon the national weakness and builds creations that put to shame and ridicule the bound feet of the aristocratic Chinese woman. The corset is a lace and ribbon-decorated armor, made either of steel ribs or whale-bone, which fits the waist and clings to the hips.
It is true, the good woman had a prudent regard to her own interests, and felt some anxiety to learn the prospects of her receiving the stipulated price for board only $1.50 per week but the sales of the needles, and palms, and carved whale-bone, having kept her accounts reasonably square, solicitude on this particular interest was not at is height.
And thinks I to myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against that cursed pyramid so confoundedly contradictory was it all, all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's his leg now, but a cane-. a whale-bone cane. Yes, thinks I, 'it was only a playful cudgelling in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me not a base kick.
Still the bearded white man did not come to Whaling, but every day brought fresh reports of the good fortune of the people of East Cape. They had captured a fourth whale, then a fifth. Their food for the winter was secured. Whale meat was excellent food. They would have an abundance of whale-bone to trade for flour, sugar and tea. But if the East Capers were favored, the men of Whaling were not.
Instead of the runners being shod with whale-bone, as in many places in the North, the Eskimos of Ungava apply a turf which is stored for the purpose in the short summer season and mixed with water to the consistency of mud. This is moulded on the runners with the hands in a thick, broad, semicircular shape, and freezes as hard as glass.
"True," replied the professor, "and your planet turns out to be an insignificant harmonicon." "And the lancet," added Inaenhaus, "is a cork, with a whale-bone handle." Mesmer played on, and now his music seemed an entreaty to some invisible spirit to appear and reveal itself to mortal eyes. At least, so it sounded to the ears of his listeners.
This of Daggett's formed no exception to the rule. The few clothes it contained were of the lightest sort, having been procured in warm climates, and were well worn, in addition. The palms, needles, and shells, and carving in whale-bone, had all been sold, to meet their owner's wants, and nothing of that sort remained.
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