“In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which nature has placed on their shoulders.” – Sir T. Herbert’s Voyages into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll.
“Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them.” – Schouten’s Sixth Circumnavigation.
“We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The Jonas-in-the-Whale… Some say the whale can’t open his mouth, but that is a fable… They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains… I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of herrings in his belly… One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over.” – A Voyage to Greenland, A.D. 1671. Harris Coll.
“Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren.” – Sibbald’s Fife and Kinross.
“Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.” – Richard Strafford’s Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D. 1668.
“Whales in the sea God’s voice obey.” – N. E. Primer.
“We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the northward of us.” – Captain Cowley’s Voyage round the Globe, A.D. 1729.
“…and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.” – Ulloa’s South America.
“To fifty chosen sylphs of special note,
We trust the important charge, the petticoat.
Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail,
Tho’ stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.”
“If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest animal in creation.” – Goldsmith, Nat. Hist.
“If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales.” – Goldsmith to Johnson.
“In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.” – Cook’s Voyages.
“The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too near approach.” – Uno Von Troil’s Letters on Banks’s and Solander’s Voyage to Iceland in 1772.
“The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.” – Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the French minister in 1778.
“And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?” – Edmund Burke’s reference in Parliament to the Nantucket Whale-Fishery.
“Spain- a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.” – Edmund Burke. (somewhere.)
“A tenth branch of the king’s ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king.” – Blackstone.
“Soon to the sport of death the crews repair:
Rodmond unerring o’er his head suspends
The barbed steel, and every turn attends.”
“Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,
And rockets blew self driven,
To hang their momentary fire
Around the vault of heaven.
“So fire with water to compare,
The ocean serves on high,
Up-spouted by a whale in air,
To express unwieldy joy.”
“Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity.” – John Hunter’s account of the dissection of a whale. (A small sized one.)
“The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale’s heart.” – Paley’s Theology.
“The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.” – Baron Cuvier.
“In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them.” – Colnett’s Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the Spermaceti Whale Fishery.
“In the free element beneath me swam,
Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle,
Fishes of every colour, form, and kind;
Which language cannot paint, and mariner
Had never seen; from dread Leviathan
To insect millions peopling every wave:
Gather’d in shoals immense, like floating islands,
Led by mysterious instincts through that waste
And trackless region, though on every side
Assaulted by voracious enemies,
Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm’d in front or jaw,
With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.”
“Io! Paean! Io! sing.
To the finny people’s king.
Not a mightier whale than this
In the vast Atlantic is;
Not a fatter fish than he,
Flounders round the Polar Sea.”
“In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed: there- pointing to the sea- is a green pasture where our children’s grand-children will go for bread.” – Obed Macy’s History of Nantucket.
“I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale’s jaw bones.” – Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales.
“She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed