The Savannah morning news., 1903-07-12

and other animalcules which float
short, a whale of gentle manners, and
not at all of the sort that would alb
sorb prophet at a gulp. The right"
or Greenland whale is the next biggest
whale. 1t attains a length of 20 feet,
and Is the principal source of both
whale oil and whalebone. But, of a
certainty, it was not the whale that
ate Jonah, inasmuch as it feeds, like
the f1nback, upon tiny pelagic animal
cules, and could not possibly swallow
mans leg, much less his whole body
such peaceable creature is it that
it has not even any teeth, but sits its
provender through a sort of screen,
which is composed of a material known
commercially as whalebone.
There are several other species Of
whales, most of them much smaller.
but all the available evidence points to
the conclusion that the particular ceta-
cean which took in Jonah, and spewed
him up subsequently upon dry land,
was none other than the sperm whale
AN animal sixty feet long when full
grown, of a predatory inclination, with
throat big enough to swallow a man,
and possessed of a stomach of suffi-
clent capacity to hold him. Such, in
TACT is the "cachalot" Commonly so
called), which. under ordinary circum-
stances, feeds upon cuttlefish. Per-
maps the scriptural specimen mistook
Jonah, swimming in the water, for a
large cephalopod. DIR. F.. E. Beddard,
anatomist of the Geological Society Of
London, has recently published an opin-
ION 10 the effect that an adult sperm
Whale might without difficulty, swallow
man. OF course, Jonah may have
oeen a small man-some men are fully
twice as big as others-and, if so, the
problem appears more easy of solution.
The cachalot. be it realized. is a true
Deast OF prey, frequently attacking the
grant squ1d Ga monstrous cuttlefish
Whlch has tentacles fifty feet long,.
ana to suppose that it would balk at
human being, If hungry, is absurd
once Gown the throat of the whale
Jonah found himself in a sort of spher-
zeal chamber. which a German anato-
mist has called the Crop" and from
which he passed on to the stomach
proper fairly roomy place, cylindrical
IN shape and about seven feet long by
three feet in diameter. OF course he
could not stand up. but he was able
10 lie down comfortably, and it may
be supposed that he did not expert
ence any painful inconvenience so long
as his host chose to refrain from eat
ing other things. few cuttlefiSheS OF
large size might have been uncomfort-
able rOommates.
There are two minor stomachs beyond
the main stomach of the sperm whale,
but it may be presumed that the proph
ct made no attempt to explore these.
Why the creature should possess so
complicated digestive apparatus no
body knows, but probably it is an in
herltance from ancestors who were
land animals. There is no doubt what
ever that the remote forebears of all
modern whales lived and walked on dry
land. Some of them actually have
rudimentary thigh bones, and even
now the unborn cetacean is clothed In
hair, which disappears later. The
whale that swallowed Jonah had about
thirty huge teeth in it's lower jaw,
some of them over a foot in length
and composed of the finest ivory. In
| deed, the ivory of which the cachalot
carries in its mouth is of so excellent
quality as TO command a high price in
the market.