The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1907-07-06

Z. JULY s, 1907.
hit by a cannon ball. The shark vom-
tied the sailor, who was picked up by
a boat. He had hardly suffered any
injury. We must remember, however,
that all that happened in 1853. I per-
sonally did not see it.
Against the traditional story in the
Bible the objection is often raised that
there are no whales in the Mediter-
ranean, and that the gullet Of a whale
is not large enough to admit a man.
Now there is no doubt Of the existence
of whales in the Mediterranean. Large
parts of the skeletons of two whales
are preserved in the museum Of the
Syrian Protestant College at Beirut
One of the animals was cast up on the
shore near Tyre, not far from the ira
ditional site Of the election Of Jonah
The other drifted ashore at Beirut it.
SELF
The gullet Of right whale would
not admit man, it is true: but the
sperm whale has a gullet quite large
enough to swallow a man. Sperm
whales are found in the Mediterranean.
In the cuneiform annals Of Assur-
nacir-pal, who reigned over Assyria
ss5-S6o B. c., it is stated that his royal
predecessor, Taglathpileser l., who
reigned about HOO B. c., boarded
Phoenician ships at Arvad, near the
northeast of the Mediterranean and
slew a physeter. or blower, with ivory
teeth; in other words, a sperm whale.
The scientific name Of the sperm
whale Is physeter, which in Greek
means blower. The blower slain by
the ancient Assyrian king must have
been sperm whale, because in an
other passage of the cuneiforn annals
Of Assur-nacirpal we find that this AS
syrian king received as tribute from
Tyre and other places on the Phoeni-
clan coast ivory teeth Of the blower,
the creature Of the sea. The sperm
whale has on each side of the lower
jaw from twenty to twenty-five teeth,
consisting Of the finest ivory. They
are about five or six inches long and
project about two inches from the
gum.
The giant sperm whale attains a
length Of about one hundred feet, with
girth Of forty feet. The Arabic name
of the sperm whale is ambar, which
means passing through the water Am
bar is also the name of the fragrant
substance which we call ambergris, or
gray amber, in distinction from yellow
amber or French amber. Ambergris is
the morbid concretion from the alinen-
tary tract Of the sperm whale, like the
bezoar found in the stomach and in
testines Of certain animals, especially
the wild goat. known as the bezoar
goat. In the Ethiopic Bible the name
anbar is used for the great fish which
swallowed Jonah.
L ~ eAAS 1S" 10t4AC4du SIuTCA va
zette Of 1895, page 3o3. it is reported
that a whale hunter, James Bradley,
was in February, 1891, swallowed by
a whale, and on the following day he
was taken alive out of its stomach He
lay in swoon in the belly of the
whale. The sailors had much difficulty
| in ino -
was not till after three months nurs-
ing that James Bradley recovered his
reason.
The sea monster which swallowed
Jonah corresponds somewhat to the
wonderful creatures in the Arabian
Nights" which transport men from one
place to another in an incredibly short
time. We must assume that the whale
swallowed Jonah near Joppa and cast
him ashore at Alexandretta
Now, from the northeast end Of the
Mediterranean it was easier for Jonah
to proceed to Ninevah. especially if he
went down the Tigris, than it would
nave OeSIl " IcIUEu 10 Jerusalem. Inc
whale could swim from Joppa to Alex
andretta in three days and three nights.
If Jonah had travelled overland on
horseback it would have taken him
more than two weeks. The trip from
; Joppa to Haifa, which represents but
one-sixth Of the entire distance from
Joppa to Jerusalem or to Aexandretta,
requires from two to three days.
| Pliny says of the physeter, the sperm
whale, that it is the largest animal in
the Gallo ocean, the Bay of Biscay.
1t raises itself an enormous pillar, tow
ering above the sails of the vessels and
srouting a food of water. Sperm
whales often do raise their enormous
heads above the water The head of a
giant sperm whale is sometimes more
than thirty feet in length