Good Lord! is this the road that Jonah went? The roof is about
twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were
a regular ridge-pole there; while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides,
present us with those wondrous, half vertical, scimetar-shaped slats
of whalebone, say three hundred on a side, which depending from the
upper part of the head or crown bone, form those Venetian blinds
which have elsewhere been cursorily mentioned. The edges of these
bones are fringed with hairy fibres, through which the Right Whale
strains the water, and in whose intricacies he retains the small
fish, when openmouthed he goes through the seas of brit in feeding
time. In the central blinds of bone, as they stand in their natural
order, there are certain curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges,
whereby some whalemen calculate the creature's age, as the age of an
oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this criterion is
far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical
probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far
greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem
reasonable.
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