Run over a few:--
The Authors of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne;
Gesner; Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald;
Brisson; Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick
Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne;
the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to
what ultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the above
cited extracts will show.
Of the names in this list of whale authors only those following Owen ever
saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional harpooneer
and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate subject
of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing authority.
But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great sperm whale,
compared with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy mentioning.
And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper upon
the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest
of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims,
and the profound ignorance which till some seventy years back,
invested the then fabulous and utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which
ignorance to this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific
retreats and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete.
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