WITH A WHALE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3892, 21 April 1937, Page 4

WITH A WHALE

TASK OF GETTING TO MUSEUM. After many vicissitudes, including the removal of its 3ft pairs of teeth by souvenir hunters, the skeleton of a sperm whale has reached the Natural History Museum at South Kensington as the property of the Crown. It is a “fish royal.”

The giant fish, 59ft. long and weighing 60 tons when whole, stranded on a sandbank off Bridlington on January 25 last. It was a diversion for visitors to the Yorkshire resort, but an embarassment to. the corporation, whose business it was to dispose of it. ■Two local fishmongers undertook to dispose of the flesh, and Mr P. Stamwitz, the British Museum preparator, supervised its dissection and transport to London. He had an adventurous time. The skull, weighing about 3 tons, sank in the sand, adding tci the difficulties caused by stormy weather. Then the remainder of the carcase was torn away by heavy seas from the breakwater to which it was ihade fast. The breakwater was damaged. The body was swept six miles down the coast. After the skull had been loaded on

a lorry, the gear used for lifting was swept out to sea. At last the complete 5-ton skeleton —minus the teeth, of course—was successfully loaded and sent to London. There its weight broke the unloading tackle. Now the skull like an ehormous wheelleSs chariot, lies in a cavity dug in the museum grounds.