THE LEVIATHAN OF THE DEEP. BY A BANKER.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 61

THE LEVIATHAN OF THE DEEP. BY A BANKER.

This gigantic monster, though a denizen^ of tbe eea and incapable of living many hours on land, is not a fish, but a true mammalian animal, and although it swims in almost exactly the came manner as a fish,' and in outward appearance resembles the fiony tribe, yet its internal organs are altogether different-, being almost precisely tbe same as those of land animals. The whale, instead of breathing water like a fish through gi'l*, breathes air by means of a pair of lungs, of such vast capacity that it is able in the course of a few minutes to take in sufficient to enable it to exist deep down in the sea for half an hour or more. It does not deposit spawn or eggs like a fish, but is viviparous, its yourg being subsequently nourished in exactly tbe same manner as a cow nourishes her calf, and the male and female exhibit as much regard for each other, and also for their young, as any animal, the male dashing to the rescue of his mate if she is attacked, and even endeavouring, it is said, to drag out | the harpoon which has struck her with his flappers or arms ; and when a male has been killed, the fema'.e has, it is stated, been known to throw herself upon the reeking corpse of her dead spouse in an sgony of grief and affection, placidly allowing herself to be killed without attemptirg to escape, apparently anxious, in the paroxysm of her sorrow, to share the fate of ber lost one, who, perhaps, had been her companion for half a century or more. (These are very long-lived creatures, and although there are no means of asceitaining the average duration of their life, it is believed to be at least a hundred years, and probably very much exceeds that .period.) It is to be regretted that some more humane means of killing thesa affectionate creatures were not invented, the present method of slowly killiDg them by repeated harpoon and spear thrusts, varied by hacking with axes, and other rough and pitiless cruelties, being altogether savage atd barbarous. Surely the ingenuity of man ought to be able to invent some means of capturing and killing them which would be more in accordance with the more merciful and Christian ideas which happily now prevail, and which aim at minimising the sufferings even of the brute creation. The heart of the whale is agigantic organ, many feet in circumference, and is believed to force about 40 quarts of blood | through a tube a foot in diameter at every beat, | driving it through a vast series of veins and arteries of prodigious length ; while the head of a large whale is sufficiently capacious to enable two or more men to stand upright in it without difficulty. Much cheap ridicule has been levelled against the history of Jonah in the whale's belly, but although, even apart from any miraculous interposition, it is not impossible that such an occurrence might have taken place, yet in a case of this kind — which in its other aspects (tbe whale in readiness at the side of the ship to rescue the prophet, and then after a given time disgorging him upon dry land instead of far away at sea) was clearly miraculous — it is needless to speculate upon the pcssibilitiesof the event, for to an omnipotent Creator there is no such thing as an impossibility, and to One who could create a Universe, or even who could create a living worm, it were easy to ordain that a man should be kept alive in the capacious interior of a whale for a time. And the veracity of the account was confirmed by Him, who like His prefigured type lay buried for a similar period, after having, by dying in our stead, offered unto us the free option of an eternal inheritance iv His glorious kingdom.

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