- Project Runeberg -  Through Norway with Ladies /
130

(1877) [MARC] Author: W. Mattieu Williams
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compound projectile, consisting of a harpoon with
hinged barbs, or rather flukes, like those of an
anchor, and weighing altogether about 30 lbs.
While the harpoon is in the gun, going through
the air, and piercing its victim, these arms, or barbs,
or flukes, lie snugly down by the side of the
harpoon shaft, but when it has penetrated the flesh of
the whale, and the shaft is drawn backwards, they
spread out, pierce the flesh sideways and obliquely,
till, at an angle of about 45°, the stop of the hinge
checks their further outspreading, and they become
an effectual barb, which renders the withdrawal
of the harpoon impossible. But this is not all.
Besides this formidable hinged barb, the harpoon
is furnished with a humanely devised explosive
shell, which bursts within the solid flesh of the
sea monster, and kills him almost instantaneously.
A towing cable is then fixed to his capacious nose,
and the little bright-green steamboat tugs the
great slate-coloured carcass into the Vadsö
harbour.

“One of these was thus brought in about
twenty-four hours ago, and another followed in
the afternoon. My pupils and I have just returned
from a rowing excursion round the carcass of the
latter, which at a distance looks like one of the low
rounded island rocks that abound hereabouts; and

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