“In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.” —Cook’s Voyages.
“The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too near approach.” —Uno Von Troil’s Letters on Banks’s and Solander’s Voyage to Iceland in 1772.
“The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.” —Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the French minister in 1778.
“And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?” —Edmund Burke’s reference in Parliament to the Nantucket Whale-Fishery.
“Spain—a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.” —Edmund Burke. (somewhere.)
“A tenth branch of the king’s ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king.” —Blackstone.
“Soon to the sport of death the crews repair:
Rodmond unerring o’er his head suspends
The barbed steel, and every turn attends.”
—Falconer’s Shipwreck.
“Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,
And rockets blew self driven,
To hang their momentary fire
Around the vault of heaven.
“So fire with water to compare,
The ocean serves on high,
Up-spouted by a whale in air,
To express unwieldy joy.”
—Cowper, on the Queen’s Visit to London.
“Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity.” —John Hunter’s account of the dissection of a whale. (A small sized one.)
“The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale’s heart.” —Paley’s Theology.
“The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.” —Baron Cuvier.