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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 liowhead wliale is worth $15,000 merely for the whalebone whale-bone it carries in its mouth.- This is the species that furnishes the hulk of the commercial supply of whalehone, which is now worth $7.50 a pound. It is a denizen of Arctic seas. The bowhead, like other whalebone whales, has no teeth. Instead its jiiws are furnished with a series of Ions, tapering slabs of a horny subs-tance fringed wilh hair. Of these slabs, which are the whalebone of commerce, there are as many as GOO. The biggest of them are 10 to T2 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 Ihe huge trap is closed and. the slabs entering and fitting into grooves in the lower jaw, the water is expelled. |