in fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom i conversed upon the subject. the picture represents a cape-horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.