Merck's 1899 Manual of the Materia Medica

Merck & Co.

Chapter 43: BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER VI. (_Sulphur Bottom_).—Another retiring

Chapters

Chapter 43: BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER VI. (_Sulphur Bottom_).—Another retiring

gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen; at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer. Thus ends BOOK I. (_Folio_), and now begins BOOK II. (_Octavo_). OCTAVOES.*—These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which present may be numbered:—I., the _Grampus_; II., the _Black Fish_; III., the _Narwhale_; IV., the _Thrasher_; V., the _Killer_. *Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder’s Quarto volume in its dimensioned form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does.
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