The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea

Whales existed before man, but they have been known to us only for two or three generations: until the invention of underwater photography, we hardly knew what they looked like. It was only after we had seen the Earth from orbiting spaceships that the first free-swimming whale was photographed underwater. The first underwater film of sperm whales, off the coast of Sri Lanka, was not taken until 1984; our images of these huge placid creatures moving gracefully and silently through the ocean are more recent than the use of personal computers. We knew what the world looked like before we knew what the whale looked like.

Generate ImageSave to Screvi

Hugest of living creatures, on the deep Stretch’d like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea. John Milton, Paradise Lost, quoted in title page to the first, English edition of Moby-Dick

Generate ImageSave to Screvi

There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, on the deep Stretch’d like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea. John Milton, Paradise Lost, quoted in title page to the first, English edition of Moby-Dick

Generate ImageSave to Screvi