The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-07

The plaster sections will be packed in about fifty large boxes. and forwarded to Washington, where, in the workshops of the Smithsonian Institution. they will be used for making a complete cast of the whole in papier mache. For this purpose the Treasury Department will contribute a great quantity of the pulp that comes from the pot in which Uncle Sans old paper money is boiled after being rcdeem- ed, so that the transmogrified cetacean will actually represent. in a certain sense, value of many millions of dollars. The cast Ca mere shell, for the sake of light ness) will be perfect reproduction of the whale and after being painted, will be the literal image of the original ami nal, even to the smallest detail It will be hung up for exhibition in a great hall of the new building that Is to be erected for the National Museum.
 Now, when 1t comes to the question whether this was the kind of whale that swallowed Jonah. science is inclined to a negative opinion. The throat of fin back whale. notwithstanding the enorm- ous size of the animal, is so small that mans arm could hardly be thrust down 1t. Besides, the creature is not a beast of prey; it feeds upon small crustaceans and other animalcules which float about at the surface of the sea-in short. Wnale or gentle manners, dHu not dt all of the sort that would absorb a prophet at a gulp.
 Right Whale Has Small Outlet.
 The right" or Greenland whale, is the next biggest whale. It attains a length of seventy feet. and is the principal source of both whaleoil and whalebone. But, of certainty, 1t was not the whale that eat Jonah, inasmuch as it feeds. like the finback, upon tiny pelagic anil malcules and could not possibly swallow a mans leg, much less his whole body. Such a peaceable creature Is it that 1t has not even any teeth, but sfts its pro- vendor through a sort of screen, which is composed of material known commer cially 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 cetacean
 which took in Jonah and spewed him up
 subsequently, upon dry land, was none
 other than the sperm whaie-an animal sixty feet long when full grown, of
 predatory inclination, with throat big enough to swallow a man, and possessed
 of a stomach of sufficient capacity to hold him. Such, in fact, is the "cachalot" (comonly so called), which, under ordi- nary circumstances feeds upon cuttlefsh. Perhaps the scriptural specimen mistook Jonah swimming in the water for large cephalopod.
 Dr. F. F. Beddard, anatomist of the
 Geological Society of London, has recent ly published an opinion to the effect that an adult sperm whale might without diff ficuIty swallow a man. Of course Jonah may have been a small man-some men
 are fully twice as big as others-and, if so the problem appears more easy Of so-
 lution. The cachalot. be it realized. is
 a true beast of prey, frequently attack
 ing the giant squid Ca monstrous cuttle- fish which has tentacles fifty feet long),
 and to suppose that 1t would balk at a
 human being, if hungry. is absurd. Plenty of Room Inside. Once down the throat of the whale, Jo- nah found himself in a sort of spherical chamber, which German anatomist 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 was not able to stand up, but he was able to lie down comfortably, and it may be supposed that he did not experience any painful incon- venience so long as his host chose to re- frain from eating other things. few
 cuttlefshes of large size might have been uncomfortable rOommates.
 There are two minor stomachs beyond the main stomach of the sperm whale but 1t may be presumed that the prophet made no attempt to explore these. Why | the creature should possess so compi- | cated digestive apparatus nobody knows l but probably it is an inheritance from | ancestors who were land animals. There | Is no doubt whatever that the remote
 forebears lived and walked on dry land
 Some of them actually have parliamentary