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Show CARRIES WEALTH IN MOUTH Bowhead Whale Worth Much Money If Only That Part of Its Anatomy Anat-omy Were Usable. A full-grown bowhead whale is wortts $15,000 merely for the whalebone whale-bone It carries in its mouth. This is the species- that furnishes the bulk of the commercial supply of whalebone, which is now worth $7.50 a pound. It Is a denizen of Arctic seas. . The bowhead, like other whalebone ivhales, has no teeth. Instead its jaws are furnished with a series of long, tapering slabs of a horny substance fringed with hair. Of these slabs, which are the whalebone of commerce, 'here are as many as 600. The biggest of them are 10 to 12 feet long and they are inserted in the gum of the upper jaw, from which they hang. They serve as a sieve to strain out the whale's food. Swimming Swim-ming along, it takes a huge mouthful of squids? and other pelagic small fry. Then the huge trap is closed and, the slabs entering and fitting into grooves li? the lower jaw, the water is expelled. |