WEBVTT - Thar She Blows, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:08.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.640 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:16.760 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.680 And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:25.000 in our series on that most charismatic anatomical feature of whales, 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:29.640 the blowhole, also known as the spiracle or the spout. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.360 If you are just joining us and you haven't heard 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:33.920 part one, you might want to hop back in the 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.800 timeline and listen to that one first. That's where we 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.360 go over a lot of the basic science of the blowhole. 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.400 But as I mentioned last time, this is a subject 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.920 that I was tempted to look into because there is 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.680 a whole chapter about the spout in the classic nineteenth 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:56.440 century American novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Now, if 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.160 you've ever read Moby Dick, you'll probably recall that it 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.880 is not all high speed whale chases and heroics by 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.520 Queek Wegg and mad sermons of vengeance by Captain Ahab An. 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.480 Awful lot of the book is made up of chapters 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:14.919 that could be considered strange, thoughtful little essays on objects 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:20.240 both technological and biological. Technological subjects like various pieces of 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:25.039 whaling equipment and things on ships, and biological subjects like 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.720 the various parts of a sperm whale's body. And one 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.160 of the latter chapters is called the Fountain. It concerns 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.679 the blowhole, and I thought this this would make an 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.240 interesting subject for us, in particular because the chapter raises 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:43.920 a number of practical controversies about the biology of whale spouts, 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:48.600 as well as some tantalizing but questionable claims about sprays 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.440 of blubbery venom from the whole. Now, among the primary 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.400 controversies that concern the narrator Ishmael in this chapter is 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.600 the question what is it exactly that shoots out of 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.720 the whale's spout? What are the plumes that whaling ships 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.120 used to locate these animals out on the high seat? 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.040 And of course these are still you know, people looking 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.079 for the whale blow is still what like whale watchers 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.280 today would use to look for these animals? Is it 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.720 a towering jet of water blasting as if from a 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.840 fire hose, as it is often depicted, I'd say most 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:29.040 often depicted, or is it nothing more than gas, vapor 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:31.679 or misst And to get as started here, I want 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.200 to read from this chapter in Moby Dick articulating this 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.000 first question, Are you all right if I read this? Rob, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.880 go for it? Okay, okay, this is what Ishmael says. 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.800 You have seen him spout, then declare what the spout is? 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.239 Can you not tell water from air? My dear sir, 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.400 In this world it is not so easy to settle 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.920 these plain things. I have ever found your plane things 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.160 the nattiest of all. And as for this whale spout, 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.799 you might almost stand in it and yet be on 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.400 decided as to what it is. Precisely the central body 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:08.160 of it is hidden in the snowy, sparkling mist enveloping it. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.200 And how can you certainly tell whether any water falls 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.000 from it? When always, when you are close enough to 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.120 a whale to get a close view of his spout, 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.720 he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.280 around him. And if at such times you should think 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.440 that you really perceived drops of moisture in the spout, 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.240 how do you know that they are not merely condensed 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:33.640 from its vapor? Or how do you know that they 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.560 are not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.600 whole fissure which is countersunk into the summit of the 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.200 whale's head. For even when tranquility swimming through the midday 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.400 sea in a calm with his elevated hump sun dried 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.920 as a dromedaries in the desert, even then, the whale 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.960 always carries a small basin of water on his head. 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.680 As under a blazing sun, you will sometimes see a 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.040 cavity in a rock filled up with rain. 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.600 Whoa who this kind of went off the rails. Yeah, 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:04.000 and here what. 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.040 You do not agree that whales always have a pool 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.000 of water on top of them, like a rock filled 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:09.800 up with rain. 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.840 Right, or that they keep their elevated humps sun dried 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.080 as a camel's in the desert. 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.279 Yeah, that is a good quase. I don't know if 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.640 there's anything to that claim or not, Like, would a 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:28.040 whale ever keep a part of its body consistently exposed 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:30.360 over the surface or do they? I mean, what I 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:32.600 feel like I've seen most of the time is repeatedly 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.200 going under and then coming back up to breathe, and 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:37.760 then returning correct. 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:39.480 Yeah, I think I think there'll be a hint of 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.480 this in one of the sources I refer to in 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:46.000 a bit concerning depictions and iconography of whales, which very 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.880 often still do picture the whale as having a large 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.279 portion of its head above the water, as if that's 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:53.320 just how it rides around. 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.320 Yeah, now, we already discussed discussed this question to some 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.520 extent in the last episode, and the consensus of spurts, 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.880 marine biologists, and just whale watchers that we were reading 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.840 last time seem to be that what comes out of 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.200 the whale's blowhole is not primarily water. It is not 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.040 a jet like from a fire hose, but it is 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:19.000 the explosive exhalation of gas from the whale's lungs, and 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.159 to be clear, that can be quite explosive, because when 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.960 a whale breathes out, especially after it has been under 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.080 for a long time, it nearly totally collapses its lungs. 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.280 It is like a blast of breath, and that exhalation 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:38.120 can create a very watery looking blow for several reasons. 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:42.360 First of all, the exhaled breath contains vapor, which condenses 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.520 into mist and droplets when it leaves the warmer environment 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.760 of the whale's lungs and airways and enters the colder 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.279 environment of the atmosphere above, similar to how you can 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.919 see your own breath on a cold day. Then, of 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.520 course there's also some droplet content in the whale breath 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.560 that is just mucus being exhaled, kind of like when 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.320 we sneeze. And then there's probably also some splashing of 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:11.440 sea water, which may happen if the exhalation begins before 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.120 the blowhole breaks the surface of the water, so some 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.760 water is just getting sort of splashed up by the blast, 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.200 or if there was some amount of seawater trapped in 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.440 the airways robbed, Is that about the gist of it, 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:24.839 you think? 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.840 Yeah? Yeah, And, like I say, from my family's tripped 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.560 down to Mexico to observe the gray whales and their lagoons, 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.800 very much the case with those exhalations that occur below 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.040 the surface of the water. Those can be quite explosive 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.000 and create what feels like a fountain next to you 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:44.000 in the water. 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.960 But that does not mean the whale spout is shooting 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.200 a jet. It is breathing out and that breath is gas, 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:54.080 though it contains probably some mucus droplets and bits of water. 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:59.200 Now, of note, I've run across various descriptions both in 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:04.240 literature and in just you know, the discussions of whale behavior. 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.960 Of the of the spout with a rainbow within it. 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.160 You know, the spout mist goes up into the air 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.440 and you can see the reflection, the refraction and the 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:17.720 and the dispersion of light in the water droplets. I 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:19.440 don't have much to say about that other than it 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.080 is neat to see, and you've certainly seen it. See 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.080 that it has captured people's imaginations over the years, and 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.800 you can find various photos of this today from whale watchers. 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.080 Rob When you mentioned this, did you know that this 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.880 actually connects to the final paragraph of this chapter in 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:36.400 Moby Dick. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.200 Moby Dick was coming up in my searches, and I've 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.800 never actually read Moby Dick. I've I've only seen the 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:48.440 film adaptations, but I did suspect that Melville also touched 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:48.720 on this. 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.840 I actually he writes about it quite beautifully, so if 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.640 you don't mind it. In the last paragraph, he says, 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.280 and how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.920 misty monster to behold solemnly sailing through a calm, tropical sea, 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:07.200 his vast mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:12.640 engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor, as you 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.320 will sometimes see it, glorified by a rainbow, as if 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.120 Heaven itself put its seal upon his thoughts. For do 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.480 you see rainbows do not visit the clear air, They 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:28.200 only irradiate vapor. Thrue science fact. And so through all 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.920 the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:35.120 divine intuitions now and then shoot in kindling my fog 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:36.280 with a heavenly ray. 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.960 That's beautiful. Yeah, and really, I mean, this is what 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.480 it's like to be in the company of whales, Like 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.240 the idea that Heaven is glorifying them with a rainbow. 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.040 It does not feel hyperbolic to me having been in 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:51.960 their presence, like being in the presence of a whale 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:57.079 invites hyperbole because it's just such an overwhelming experience. 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.839 Haven't had the experience myself, but I can't disagree it 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.920 is quite true to most observers who write of it. 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:05.280 But I want to come back to this misconception, the 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.880 idea that the whale spout shoots a jet of water 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.080 like from a fire hose. Do we have any idea 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.120 like where does this misconception come from? How far back 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.720 does it go? And like why were people saying this? 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.040 Yeah, it's interesting to try and tease this apart getting 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.280 into these older descriptions of whales and older understandings of 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:30.280 whale behavior and biology. You know, there's a lot we're 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.400 still unraveling about wales today. But historically there was a 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.480 great deal that wasn't known about these creatures, and they 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.640 were frequently the subject of myth, legend and folklore, and 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:45.080 even people who are trying to, you know, skeptically understand 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.480 them were often having to depend on the word of 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.400 sailors and second and third hand accounts of what they do. 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:55.640 And then you throw whalers into the mix, and of 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.959 course you know that also skews things in different directions. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.600 But they were, you know, generally they were often interpreted 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:07.040 as fish, as monsters, as gods, as shape shifters, and more. Now, 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:11.160 concerning whale blow or whale spout in particular, there are 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.720 a few main myths and misconceptions. Yeah, to discuss, uh, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.120 you know, first hitting on this one about the about 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.600 the spout being a jet of water. Again, this is 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.440 something that not only do you find in old besty 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.720 areas and woodcuts some of those old maps. You see 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:33.320 these fabulous like beat twails with two you know, almost 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.640 like Martian old school Martian style blowholes on the top 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.240 of their head that are depicted just spouting big jets 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:42.080 of water like their fire engines. 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.760 They have almost horns made of water or like antinnae. 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.160 Yes and then just poking around. If you if you 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.000 have your your smartphone with you and you pull up, 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.480 pull up somebody in there, do a you know, a text, 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.120 and if you go into throwing some whale emojis, chances are, 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:01.719 I don't know, if your phone's like mine, you'll have 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.760 two to choose from. One is a more thankfully scientifically 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.800 accurate whale, but the other is what we've seen a 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.920 million times and emojis and clip art. It is a 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:15.200 cartoon whale spouting a fountain out of its single blowhole 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:16.360 on the top of its head. 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:18.680 The same way it is most often drawn, with the 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.520 fountains splitting in a kind of fork two ways. 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.520 Yeah, which, as we discussed in the previous episode, you know, 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.360 the spout has different shapes and different intensities depending on 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.920 the species of the whale. Some do kind of squirt 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:35.640 off in two directions. But it's the way you see 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.080 it in clip art and these simple plaistic cartoon illustrations. Yeah, 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.520 it tends to look just like a fountain. Now. In 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.800 trying to in getting into this ended up, I kept 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.800 pulling up older sources. But one of the more interesting 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.600 older sources on this is an eighteen eighty four book 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:56.599 by naturalist Henry Lee titled See Fables Explained, and it 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.440 took on this misconception about whale spout more than a 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:01.000 century eco. 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.480 Now a brief note on Henry Lee. He was a 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:09.000 nineteenth century English naturalist who specialized in marine organisms, and 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.079 for a time he was the director of the Brighton 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:12.319 Aquarium in England. 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:13.400 But he is. 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:19.920 Notable for writing measured skeptical investigations of cryptozoological legends, and 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.800 in this latter capacity he has actually come up on 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.080 the show before, I think, on some episodes that we 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:30.559 just recently did for Vaults on Saturdays. So Lee was 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.000 the author of the eighteen eighty seven monograph called the 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.440 Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a curious fable of the cotton plant. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.360 We discussed this at length in those episodes on the 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:45.000 vegetable lamb, which of course was a legendary organism with 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.720 accounts going back to ancient times, usually described as a 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:53.040 basically a mammal that grew from a plant, a furry, 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.160 flesh and blood mammal that had meat and bones and 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.320 blood that came out of a stalk that was attached 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.400 to the ground roots and grew somewhere in Central Asia. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.080 While there have been multiple skeptical attempts to make sense 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.319 of these legends going back hundreds of years, Lee offered an, 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.439 I think, in both of our views, an extremely persuasive 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.680 argument that these accounts actually go back to observations and 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:22.640 misunderstandings of the cotton plant. So by the standards I 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.000 would normally apply to a I don't know, a multidisciplinary 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:30.719 skeptical treatise involving literary, historical, and biological knowledge from the 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:35.520 eighteen eighties, I recall being extremely impressed with the last 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:36.880 work of Lee's that we looked at. 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.880 Oh. Absolutely yeah, And I feel like this book. What 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.600 I read from it, which is basically the chapter on 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.640 whale spout, I thought thought it was a very level 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.280 and in any ways ahead of its time. So in 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.680 this chapter he cites an example of this whale spout 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.559 misunderstanding in the work of the second century Greco Roman 0:13:55.640 --> 0:14:01.319 poet Opian And this is the quote uncouth the site 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:05.840 when they, in dreadful play discharge their nostrils and refund 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:10.800 to see while noisy finfish let their fountains fly and 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.320 spout the curling torrent to the sky. So beautiful, you know, 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.640 in translation obviously, but yeah, this idea of refunding the sea, 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.800 letting the fountain fly a curling torrent up to the sky, 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.240 it's at least a landsman's idea of what whale spout 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:27.840 consisted of. 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.520 Based on what I've read, it seems like the most 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:34.160 common understanding was that whales were shooting jets of water 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.240 out of their blowholes because they like swallowed a lot 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.280 of water through their mouths while eating, and then they 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.640 would have to squirt it back out, but couldn't do 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:44.280 that through their mouths for some reason. 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:47.480 Yeah, yeah, which I think it's one of those things 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.080 that certainly by this point naturalists knew that this is 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.520 not how an organism worked, and certainly not how to 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.720 how whale works. And so Lee, Yeah, he basically lays 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.560 out that this had been already been refuted time and 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.840 time again by naturalist but that the image was just 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:07.440 too entrenched in the popular imagination and popular imagery of 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.480 whales to be fully dismissed. And also more people are 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.240 casually taking these images in than they are actually listening 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.240 to the naturalists. And we have to, I guess we 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.320 also have to bear in mind like today so many 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.840 of us have access, whether we're actively watching them or not, 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.240 to fabulous documentaries about the biology and behavior of whales, 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.720 so many opportunities to see for yourself what the whale 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.080 spout looks like. And this of course was not always the. 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.520 Case, right, So back then there might have been more 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.560 correct knowledge about whales and their mammalian biology in books. 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.840 But that it really hits home more when you just 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:49.200 like see some video of them moving and swimming and spouting. 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:53.680 Right, right, So he rails against quote sensational pictures in 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.040 which whales are presented with their heads above the surface 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:01.080 and throwing up from their nostrils column of water like 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:06.080 the fountains in Trafalgar Square. Now he cites another erroneous 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:12.239 description from a sixteenth century map by map master Olaus Magnus. 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:14.640 This is somebody we've talked about on the show before 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.400 and concerning old maps and sea monsters. Right. 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.560 I think he came up extensively in my interview with 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:25.840 chet van Duzer on the history of monsters on maps, 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.840 but I think he's come up in other capacities as well. 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:30.760 This is a recurring guest here. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:37.280 Yes, Lee writes the following, quoting Magnus quote four to 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.640 the danger of seamen, he will sometimes raise himself above 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.160 the saal yards and cause such floods of water above 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.360 his head which he had sucked in that with a 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.280 cloud of them, he will often sink the strongest ships 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.280 or expose the mariners to extreme danger. This beast hath 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.880 also a large round mouth like a lamprey, whereby he 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.520 sucks in his meat or water and buy his weight 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:05.960 casts upon the flour or or hinder deck. He sinks 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.160 and drowns a ship hinder deck, hinder deck, hinder deck. 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.280 I think I don't know anyway, you get the idea like, 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.920 here's this big monster and there and he fears. Some 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.359 woodcut illustrations to this article, and you can you can 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.199 easily find these as well, depicting the same sort of 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:25.040 like you know, beaked monstrosity we just described with these 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.240 creatures like coming up to a ship and spitting out that, 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.879 you know, using their their strange blowholes to just flood 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:33.080 a ship and make it sink. 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.040 Brutal, not real though. 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.520 Yeah no, and Lee continues to rail against this. He 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.359 shares that after previously trying to set the record straight 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:46.680 on this in a publication, he received letters stating that, Okay, sure, 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.280 while lesser whales might not spout water like this, the 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.639 great whales are doing it. They're totally doing it. You're wrong. 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.320 So he goes on to discuss the basics of blowhole 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.600 anatomy and function, driving home that there's no way this 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.639 system could be the system that you find in a 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.480 whale's head, great or small. There's no way that this 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.560 system could be used to squirt jets of pure water. 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.520 It's just not how their bodies work. Right. 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.479 So, as we said before, in certain cases, there might 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.640 be a lot of splashing from a whale's explosive exhalation, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.600 but it's exhaling gas and that maybe some splash is 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.760 getting caught up in that exhalation, but it is not 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.720 squirting water. What's coming out is from its lungs. 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.320 Right, and he lays all this out and discusses everything 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:38.360 we've just mentioned before that yeah, it's not water coming out, 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.160 but if the exhalation comes below the surface of the water, 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.000 it's liable to carry up a lot of water and 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:44.880 have this explosive watery appearance. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.400 Now, given all this, I did want to be fair. 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:49.600 I want to come back and add that to the 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.840 partial credit of Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick. He 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.840 does come down on what we now know to be 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.000 the correct side of the water jet versus mist or 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.960 vapor debate. So he says it is missed, but he 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.439 gives a fairly hilarious reason for thinking it is missed. 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.080 His explanation is as follows. 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:09.920 Quote. 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.760 I account him meaning the sperm whale, no common shallow being, 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.800 inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he has 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:22.120 never found on soundings or near shores all other whales 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.679 sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.679 am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:36.119 beings such as Plato, Piro, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:40.440 so on, there always goes up a certain semi visible steam. 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.960 While in the act of thinking deep thoughts while composing 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.159 a little treatise on eternity. I had the curiosity to 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.240 place a mirror before me, and ere long saw reflected 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.040 there a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.880 over my head, the invariable moisture of my hair while 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.000 plunged in deep thought after six cups of hot tea 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.119 in my thin shingled attic of an August noon. This 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:10.160 seems an additional argument for the above supposition is so good, 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:12.080 I get sweaty one time too. 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.240 Yeah, these are some some wonderful mental gymnastics which again 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:20.800 land him in the right spot, but some unnecessary twists 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:34.040 and turns. Now. It's worth noting, for the most part, 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:38.639 this misunderstanding of whale anatomy is victimless, right. I mean, 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.240 it's like, okay, if worst case scenario you think that 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.080 a whale shoots water out of its blowhole, I mean, 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.359 what's it? Or if you encounter a whale you'll be 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:49.840 set right on this. But it's worth noting that the 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:54.119 myth of whale spouts and water can even prove actually 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.919 dangerous to whales. This, according to Dan Jarvis of the 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:02.119 British Diver's Marine Life Rescue organization is quoted in a 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.960 twenty twenty one Melissa Hobson article on Nationalgeographic dot Cota UK. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.560 Apparently there have been cases where people who are not 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:13.000 familiar with the anatomy of whales, who still have this 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.159 idea of the whale fountain in their mind. They have 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.800 happened upon a stranded whale on the beach and thinking 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.399 that this great fish needs water to start pouring water 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:28.919 into its blowhole, which can drown the whale. Oh no, yeah, 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.520 So you know there are cases where not knowing what's 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.760 going on, even is a non biologist, it can lead 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.399 to something like this. So don't go pouring water into blowholes. 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.760 Certainly not but okay, I think we can mostly close 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:44.760 the book on the idea of the water jet. It's 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.920 not a water jet. But returning to c fables explained 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.800 by Henry Lee, Lee also briefly addresses a strange claim 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.239 in the same chapter of Moby Dick that caught our 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.919 attention and we wanted to investigate further and to refresh you. 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:01.800 We mentioned that in the last episode. But this is 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:08.040 the allegation made by Ishmael that the whale spout is poisonous, 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:12.200 a claim that seemed prima fasse unlikely to both of us. 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:16.000 But to read again from Mobi Dick so you'll know 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:19.440 what he's saying. He says that for even when coming 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.000 into slight contact with the outer vapory shreds of the jet, 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:27.080 which will often happen, your skin will feverishly smart from 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.480 the acridness of the thing, so touching it. And I 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.199 know one who coming into still closer contact with the spout, 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.560 whether with some scientific object in view or otherwise, I 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:43.040 cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. Wherefore, 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:47.199 among whalemen the spout is deemed poisonous. They try to 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.159 evade it. Another thing I have heard it said, and 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:52.600 I do not much doubt it, that if the jet 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.000 is fairly spouted into your eyes it will blind you. 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:59.399 The wisest thing the investigator can do, then, it seems 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.800 to me, is to let this deadly spout alone. So 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:05.680 that's a number of strange claims, he says. Okay, I've 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.320 got a friend who got some whale blow on him 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.800