it is a thing well known to both american and english whale-ships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by scoresby, that some whales have been captured far north in the pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the greenland seas. nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has been declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could not have exceeded very many days. hence, by inference, it has been believed by some whalemen, that the nor’ west passage, so long a problem to man, was never a problem to the whale. so that here, in the real living experience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of the inland strello mountain in portugal (near whose top there was said to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface); and that still more wonderful story of the arethusa fountain near syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the holy land by an underground passage); these fabulous narrations are almost fully equalled by the realities of the whalemen.