CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True

Pictures of Whaling Scenes.

In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly

tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them

which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern,

especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass

that matter by.

I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale;

Colnett’s, Huggins’s, Frederick Cuvier’s, and Beale’s. In the previous