WHALEBACE BOATS
2073
WHEAT
are a matter of inheritance, but in the changed habits of the animal are not required. The whales have nostrils on the top of the head, and in coming to the surface they spout or blow. They do not, however, as is generally supposed, throw out a jet of water. The column of spray is due to the condensing of their warm breath, which is laden with watery vapor. The head, which in some species may make one third the length of the entire animal, merges into the body without a perceptible neck. The fore limbs are modified into paddles, but, internally, they show bones corresponding to those in the arm of man, not to those in the fins of fishes. The hind limbs are absent, but there is a distinct trace of the hip-bones. The tail is expanded horizontally, not vertically as in the fishes. Most warm-blooded animals are kept warm by a hairy covering; the whales, however, are almost destitute of hair; but the body is surrounded by a very thick layer of fat or blubber under the skin to keep up the temperature. The whales wander over a wide part of the ocean, being found in tropical, temperate and frigid seas. Their food is varied, that of the sperm-whales being partly made of lar^e cuttlefish. The ambergris of commerce is derived from an internal secretion coming from these whales and containing the hard beaks of cuttlefish. The large whalebone whales feed on small Crustacea, squids, fish and the like. They swim with their mouths open. When a number of these small creatures are collected within the mouth, it is closed and the water is strained through the plates of whalebones, while the animals are retained.
The rorquals, from 65 to 75 feet long, are among the most abundant whales. The finback whale, about 60 feet long, is found along the coast of the eastern United States and is sometimes seen in Massachusetts Bay. Another common whale of our eastern Atlantic coast is the black or right whale, about 40 feet long. It is occasionally found as far south as South Carolina. In the Arctic region is found the great bowhead, the most valuable of whales to the whale hunters, but not the largest one. It reaches a length of 50 to 60 feet, but an adult will yield from 200 to 300 barrels of oil and two tons of whalebone. The largest whale is the sulphur bottom of the Pacific, which reaches 100 feet in length, and is the largest of living animals and, probably, of all animals that have ever lived. The razorback of the northern Atlantic grows to be 70 feet in length. The sperm-whale or cachalot is a toothed whale, which attains a length of. 80 feet. It inhabits the open sea, especially in southern latitudes. It yields the fine sperm-oil and spermaceti. The chase of these monsters of the ocean has greatly declined, largely on account of their grow-
ing scarcity and the abundance of other oils. Formerly New Bedford and San Francisco were the principal whaling-ports of the United States.
Whaleback Boats. This form of steam-vessel was developed on the great lakes of America between 1875 and 1880. The idea was to build a vessel of steel with top-sides and erections rounded in such form as to reduce the resistance both to wind and water to a minimum. The name was given because of the resemblance of that portion of the vessel which is visible when afloat to the back of a whale. The first whaleback barge was built of 437 tons' registry, 1,400 tons' capacity. Whalebacks are in use on the Atlantic coast. The Chas. W. Whitmore, ^,000 tons, made the voyage to Liverpool in 1891. The shape of these vessels makes them particularly steady at sea. The poor accommodation for the crew on long voyages has prevented its general adoption in traffic on the ocean.
Whate'ly, Richard, a British theologian, was born at London, Feb. i, 1787. He studied at Oxford with honor, and remained there as tutor and afterward as Bampton lecturer. After having charge of a parish for two years, he returned to Oxford as principal of St. Alban's Hall, and later was made professor of political economy. His appointment soon after as archbishop of Dublin, "a call to the helm of a crazy ship in a storm" as he called it, gave him work of a different kind, but he endowed the chair of political economy in Trinity College. During the Irish famine he was unwearied in his efforts to help his people, and his charities always were on a large scale. His treatises on Logic, Rhetoric and Christian Evidences, his best-known works, were long used as textbooks. His Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon is also famous. A daughter of his did noble service as a missionary among the Muslim women of Egypt. He died on Oct. 8, 1863. Consult Life and Correspondence by his daughter and Memoirs by W. J. Fitzpatrick.
Wheat, a species of Triticum^ (T. sati-vum), a genus of the grass family. It is not known in the wild state, but its original home is believed to have been in western Asia. It has been under cultivation throughout the entire time covered by human records. Spelt is a kind of wheat cultivated in some parts of Europe, in which the chaff adheres firmly to the grain, as in barley. In the wheat of ordinary cultivation, however, the chaff is easily removed by threshing. The numerous varieties are variously known as spring and winter wheat, bearded and beardless wheat etc. Spring wheat is sown in early spring; winter wheat in the autumn. Wheat is one of the most valuable of cereals, and is the source of all the common white flour of the United States. In 1910 the wheat crop of the world amounted
