Of all the strange animals which live in the sea the sperm whale is certainly one of the most extraordinary; whenever I look at one I feel like saying with the country boy who had just seen his first camel:
“There ain’t no such thing, b’gosh.”
A sperm whale lying on the slip at Kyuquot, Vancouver Island. Note the slender lower jaw and the small side fins.
Its head, which occupies one-third of the entire body, is rectangular in shape, and contains an immense tank filled with liquid oil known as “spermaceti.” It is only necessary to cut an opening in the “case,” as this portion of the head is called, and with a bucket dip out ten or fifteen barrels of oil.
Spermaceti congeals slightly when cooled and in appearance is much like soft white paraffin. Beneath the oil-case is a great mass of cellular tissue, called the “junk,” which also contains spermaceti although not in a liquid condition. Spermaceti is used almost entirely for lubricating fine pieces of machinery and its quality is very much superior to the oil obtained from the blubber.
The use to the whale of the oil-case is largely a matter of conjecture. My own belief is that it acts as a great reservoir and that the animal draws upon it for nourishment during periods of food scarcity. Bears, seals, and other animals store up on their bodies great quantities of fat which enable them to live without food during hibernation, or the breeding period, and the sperm whale is possibly a similar case; some specimens are killed which are “dry,” and have practically no oil in either the blubber or head.
Spermaceti should not be confused with “ambergris,” a substance of great value in the manufacture of perfumes, which is obtained only from the sperm whale. Ambergris is due to a pathological condition of the intestines and is never found in healthy whales. It is impossible to tell just how the substance is formed, but the fact that it often contains cuttlefish beaks leads to the supposition that it is in some way connected with the squid and cuttlefish upon which the sperm whale feeds.
Stripping the blubber from the head of a sperm whale. Immediately beneath the blubber of this portion is the oil-case. The blowhole may be seen at the end of the snout.