What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering,
icy seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout?
True, other fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters;
but these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish,
whose very bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm
themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter
would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale has
lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he dies. How wonderful
is it then--except after explanation--that this great monster,
to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man;
how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips
for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard,
they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen
into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber.
But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment,
that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo
negro in summer.
It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong
individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare
virtue of interior spaciousness.
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