“The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.” —_Baron Cuvier_.

“In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them.” —_Colnett’s Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the Spermaceti Whale Fishery_.

“In the free element beneath me swam, Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, Fishes of every colour, form, and kind; Which language cannot paint, and mariner Had never seen; from dread Leviathan To insect millions peopling every wave: Gather’d in shoals immense, like floating islands, Led by mysterious instincts through that waste And trackless region, though on every side Assaulted by voracious enemies, Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm’d in front or jaw, With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.” —_Montgomery’s World before the Flood_.

“Io! Paean! Io! sing. To the finny people’s king. Not a mightier whale than this In the vast Atlantic is; Not a fatter fish than he, Flounders round the Polar Sea.” —_Charles Lamb’s Triumph of the Whale_.

“In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed: there—pointing to the sea—is a green pasture where our children’s grand-children will go for bread.” —_Obed Macy’s History of Nantucket_.

“I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale’s jaw bones.” —_Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales_.

“She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago.” —_Ibid_.

“No, Sir, ’tis a Right Whale,” answered Tom; “I saw his sprout; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. He’s a raal oil-butt, that fellow!” —_Cooper’s Pilot_.

“The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that whales had been introduced on the stage there.” —_Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe_.

“My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?” I answered, “we have been stove by a whale.” —“_Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean_.” _By Owen Chace of Nantucket, first mate of said vessel. New York_, 1821.

“A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, The wind was piping free; Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale, And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale, As it floundered in the sea.” —_Elizabeth Oakes Smith_.

“The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six English miles....

“Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles.” —_Scoresby_.

“Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.... It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, so important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late years, must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes.” —_Thomas Beale’s History of the Sperm Whale_, 1839.

“The Cachalot” (Sperm Whale) “is not only better armed than the True Whale” (Greenland or Right Whale) “in possessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe.” —_Frederick Debell Bennett’s Whaling Voyage Round the Globe_, 1840.

October 13. “There she blows,” was sung out from the mast-head. “Where away?” demanded the captain. “Three points off the lee bow, sir.” “Raise up your wheel. Steady!” “Steady, sir.” “Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?” “Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she breaches!” “Sing out! sing out every time!” “Ay Ay, sir! There she blows! there—there—_thar_ she blows—bowes—bo-o-os!” “How far off?” “Two miles and a half.” “Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands.” —_J. Ross Browne’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruize_. 1846.

“The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of Nantucket.” —“_Narrative of the Globe Mutiny_,” _by Lay and Hussey survivors. A.D._ 1828.

Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.” —_Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett_.

“Nantucket itself,” said Mr. Webster, “is a very striking and peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry.” —_Report of Daniel Webster’s Speech in the U. S. Senate, on the application for the Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket_. 1828.

“The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment.” —“_The Whale and his Captors, or The Whaleman’s Adventures and the Whale’s Biography, gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore Preble_.” _By Rev. Henry T. Cheever_.

“If you make the least damn bit of noise,” replied Samuel, “I will send you to hell.” —_Life of Samuel Comstock_ (_the mutineer_), _by his brother, William Comstock. Another Version of the whale-ship Globe narrative_.

“The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they failed of their main object, laid-open the haunts of the whale.” —_McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary_.

“These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound forward again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic North-West Passage.” —_From_ “_Something_” _unpublished_.

“It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular voyage.” —_Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex_.

“Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales.” —_Tales of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean_.

“It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages enrolled among the crew.” —_Newspaper Account of the Taking and Retaking of the Whale-Ship Hobomack_.

“It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels (American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they departed.” —_Cruise in a Whale Boat_.

“Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale.” —_Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman_.

“The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied to the root of his tail.” —_A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks_.

“On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone’s throw of the shore” (Terra Del Fuego), “over which the beech tree extended its branches.” —_Darwin’s Voyage of a Naturalist_.

“‘Stern all!’ exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the boat, threatening it with instant destruction;—‘Stern all, for your lives!’” —_Wharton the Whale Killer_.