long as its air supply will allow. So all whales have in their heads a wonderful air storage chamber. The chamber is an enlargement of the nasal sinus, and in a very large whale, this strange tank, or compartment, would measure four teen feet long by seven feet high, and seven feet wide. Dr. Eansome Harvey recounts that a friend of his, weighing two hundred pounds, climbed from the mouth of a dead whale into this chamber. If the whale takes into its mouth any object too big to swallow, it thrusts it up into this air chamber. If it finds that it has a large object in its head, it swims to the nearest land, lies in shallow water, and ejects it. Some time ago in the Cleveland Plain Dealer there appeared an article quoting Dr. Ransome Harvey, who stated that a dog was lost overboard from a whaler. It was found in the head of the whale six days later alive, and none the worse for its unnatural journey. This quota tion was reprinted by the Sunday School Times, causing a great deal of comment. At any rate, it may easily be seen that a man would have no difficulty re maining alive for three days and three nights in an air chamber as extensive as this, containing 686 cubic feet of space. But let us not forget our original proposition that it may not have been and probably was not a whale. There are sharks that swim the sea that would -come under the restricted meaning of the Hebrew word dag, for these sharks are fish. The late Dr. A. C. Dixon stated that in a museum at Beirut there is the head of a shark big enough to swallow the largest man that history records. Dr. Dixon also recounts instances where the white shark of the Mediterranean was known to have swallowed a whole horse. Another one of these monsters of the deep swallowed a reindeer, minus only its horns. Upon its capture investi gators found in another Mediterranean white shark a whole sea cow, about the size of an ox. There is a ferocious and voracious shark called the somnilosis microcepha lous, also known as the “ sleeper shark.” While it is small, seldom reaching more than twenty feet in length, it is the swiftest and most ferocious shark extant. It is known to attack the largest whale and to bite hunks of blubber from this huge mammal until the victim suc cumbs. This shark could have swallowed Jonah, but the difficulty is that it would probably have bitten him into at least two sections. So we come to the point of this en tire discussion. Is there any creature that swims the deep sea whose natural feeding habits and whose entire mor phology would make him a logical host for Jonah? As far as we know, there is only one, but we are happy to state that there is one. This is a shark which is known as the rhinodon typicus. It is called variously the “bone-shark,” the (Continued from Page 23) T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
and six inches in length, while the av erage length would be in the neighbor hood of seventy-six feet. They also are armed with longitudinal ridges. From sixty to ninety protuberant ridges of blubber line them for their entire length. This particular type of whale would have no difficulty whatever in accommo dating a man. As an evidence of the size these great animals reach, we quote here an expert, Charles Bell Emerson, who replied to a query by stating: “ The last account that I have of a big haul was that of the Norwegian whaler, N. T. Nielson Alonso. She was covered from stem to stem with layers of con gealed grease, and gave off that peculiar odor of whale oil that you can smell a mile or more; she arrived in Sydney, Australia, on February 29th, from the Ross Sea, as she had to have bunker coal before proceeding to Larvik, Nor way. His Path for Me I put my feet upon God’s path; I know not where that path will lead Nor yet how long the road will be. I need not know. I only plead That He will always be my guide. And I shall find, when life is past, His path was safe and it was best, And it has led me home at last. —Martha Snell Nicholson “ Unusually favorable conditions pre vailed all the time during the four months’ cruise, and the vessel’s tanks were full of whale oil to their full capacity. “And it is recorded that fifty-seven thousand (57,000) barrels of oil were secured on that voyage. This is valued at about $1,330,000. “ There is a record of a sulphur-bot tom whale 95 feet in length and having a weight of 147 tons — 294,000 pounds. This specimen, captured off the west coast of North America, is the largest whale of which there is authentic rec ord; this would mean that this one was the largest animal ever known to man, up to date. “ The one that went ashore was big enough so that a 75-ton locomotive crane was unable to lift it out of the entrance to the Panama Canal, so it was towed 12 miles out to sea, and Navy aero planes dropped two 160-pound bombs and blew it to pieces.” The whale’s stomach is complex, hav ing from four to six chambers or com partments, in any one of which a small colony of men could be readily accom modated. We have records that show the whale has proved itself host to various living creatures. The whale is an air breath ing mammal and cannot live without oxygen. This oxygen it has to get some where above the water. As the whale has no gills, it can only submerge as
There is another whale of this same type, the denticete, known as the “bot tle-nosed” or “ beaked” whale. Its scien tific name is tiphiide. This is a small whale, not over thirty feet long. Al though this whale is only half the size of the sperm whale, it has a throat big enough to swallow a man. However, we exclude this whale from being Jonah’s host, because it also is armed with teeth and chews its food. We do not desire to make this study technical, and so we will pass on to say that the other type of whale is known as the mysticete. This group is com posed of the whales that have no teeth. In place of teeth they are equipped with whale bone plates, called balaena. These plates form the sieve through which the food of the whale is strained. These plates vary in length from eighteen inches to twelve feet in some cases. One particular whale of the order mysticete has plates that are eighteen inches in width at the juncture with the jaw. They taper down to about the width of the hand and become finally attenuated, something after the order of the straws in a whisk-broom. The ends of the upper and lower balaena join in the center of the mouth, forming a sieve through which the food is strained, as stated above. This group of whales has a curious habit of feeding. They open their months, submerge their lower jaws, and rush through the water at a terrific speed. When one of them thus feeding has filled his gigantic mouth, he closes his jaws and curls back his lips. By a muscular pressure of the tongue he forces the water out of his mouth straining it through his balaena, or plates. When the water is all excluded, the whale swallows whatever is left in his mouth. Some of these creatures are armed with these plates to the number of three hundred on each side. The balaena is the source of the whalebone of trade. These whales migrate from sea to sea, and since all seas connect somewhere, they may be found in their migrations and wanderings in strange, out-of-the-way places. It is in this order of whale that the very largest types are found. They form a fascinating field of study. For in stance, there is that variety called the megaptera medosa, or “humpbacked” whales. They are weird-looking as they pass in the sea, being about fifty feet in length, with their heads forming fully one-third of their entire length. They have a low, thick dorsal fin which adds to their humpbacked appearance. The pectoral fins are fifteen feet long, and as they speed through the water, these pectorals assume the appearance of wings. They are covered with rows of longitudinal ridges like a rib tread automobile tire. They feed on anything that floats on the surface of the sea. The largest whale known is the balaenoptera musculus, commonly called the “ sulphur bottom,” belonging to the variety called finback. One of them has been measured that was ninety-five feet
Page Twelve
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs