OCR Text |
Show LENGTH OF WHALES.-Mr. Scoresby, a very high authority on this subject, declares that the common whale seldom exceeds seventy feet in length, and is much more frequently under sixty. Out of three hundred and twenty-two whales, which he assisted personally in capturing, not one exceeded fifty-eight feet, and the largest of which he knew the reported measurement to be authentic came up to only sixty-seven feet. Two specimens of rorqual or razerback whale, have been observed of one hundred and five feet in length. One of these was found floating lifeless in Davis Straits, and the skeleton of the other was seen in Columbia River and must, tail and all when alive, have measured one hundred and twelve feet. Other specimens have measured a hundred, and many others from eighty to ninety feet. One cast on shore at North Berwick, Scotland, and preserved by Dr. Knox, was eighty-three feet in length. These instances begin to establish the average and extreme length of the huge animals. But, with considerable credulity in earlier accounts, Baron Covier(?), the eminent naturalist says stoutly, "There is no doubt that whales have been seen at certain epochs and in certain ages upward of three hundred feet long or one hundred yards in length." |