"We used to watch this huge whale come
to the surface again and again to blow, at intervals of thirty to forty
seconds, and from the fact that at each of four or five appearances no
vestige of a dorsal fin was visible, we began to wonder whether we had
not found the Right whale that was once reported to be so abundant in
Ross Sea. Again and again the spout went up into the cold air, a white
twelve-foot column of condensed moisture, followed by a smooth broad
back, and yet no fin. For some time we remained uncertain as to its
identity, till at last in sounding for a longer disappearance and a
greater depth than usual, the hinder third of the enormous beast appeared
above the surface for the first time with its little angular dorsal fin,
at once dispelling any doubts we might have had."[70]
It is supposed to be the largest mammal that has ever existed.[71] As it
comes up to blow, "one sees first a small dark hump appear and then
immediately a jet of grey fog squirted upwards fifteen to eighteen feet,
gradually spreading as it rises vertically into the frosty air. I have
been nearly in these blows once or twice and had the moisture in my face
with a sickening smell of shrimpy oil. Then the hump elongates and up
rolls an immense blue-grey or blackish-grey round back with a faint ridge
along the top, on which presently appears a small hook-like dorsal fin,
and then the whole sinks and disappears.
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