Book page from the first volume of "Histoire generale des Drogues", with two woodcuts showing representations of whales: at top, a cachalot with a lizardlike ruff of skin around its throat, a crocodile-like head, and two spouts of water emerging from stovepipe-like blowholes. Captioned "Cachalot, ou Baleine Masle" (Cachalot, or male whale). Below, a whale with a greater resemblance to nature (but still with stovepipe blowholes) is being skinned by a party of men, near the shore. An anchor is sunk into the side of the whale; the whale has four prominent teats. There is a whaleboat and barrels for whale oil in the foreground. Below the images, text in French, translating to"
"The whale is the largest of all the fish, which are found in the northern sea, since it was seen [?] at Paris in 1658. The skeleton of a whale of which the skull was 17 feet in size, weight 4600 pounds, its jaws were 10 feet across, and 40 feet long, each one weighing 1100 pounds; its fins, which resembled hands, 12 feet long, each one weighing 600 pounds; the sides 12.5 feet, each one weighing 45 pounds, the junctions of the spine from the head up to the end of the tail were 45 feet long, the first junctions"
The text continues on the verso, which is p. 74.
"weighing 50 pounds, and the others became smaller and smaller in size up till the end [of the tail]. I will certainly stop myself from writing about everything concerning this animal, or the manner in which it is hunted, because there are many authors who have treated this subject; I will be content to say only that there are 2 species of Whales, of which one is called the Cachalot, which differs from that which is called Whale, in the sense that the mouth of the Cachalot is festooned with small teeth, without whalebone, which is the opposite case to that of the one that bears the name Whale, which only has whalebone. It is from the fat of these animals that one obtains the oil called whale [oil]; we make a very large trade from this, especially during times of peace, because of the great use it has in France, mostly for burning, that for many works, where it would be painful to go without it, principally for refinining the [??], & for the preparation of certain leathers, for which it is necessary.
We see in Paris two sorts of whale oil, of which the better is that which we call the oil of Grande Baye, which is made by the French immediately after they harvest the fat from the whale, which is why the French oils do not smell as bad as the Dutch ones; because the Dutch do not make their oil immediately after they harvest the fat from the whale, but instead they take it to Holland to make it; therefore one has to prefer the French oils to the Dutch ones, which can be understood, in that the Dutch oils are very red and foul-smelling; & nevertheless very clear and with very little particulate material [?]. Most whale oil comes from the Arctic seas, principally those of Holland, because that is the place where one can find the greatest abundance of whales."
The following section is crossed out and x'd over with pencil. The text translates to,
"Of the white of the whale.
The white of the whale, as all the ancients and moderns called it, and which is today very inappropriately called sperme, or nature of the Whale, is the brain of a species of whale, which the Basques call Byaris, and those of St. Jean de Luz [call] Cachalot. This animal, following several [authors], is called the male whale, and in Latin, Ora. It is about 25 feet long and 12 feet tall, and each of its teeth weighs a pound, which [that is, the teeth] are very suitable for many different tasks.
These animals are very common at the cape of Penister and the coast of Galice, and also in Norway. In 1688, one was taken by a Spanish ship which took it to St. Sebastian, from the head of which they took 80 barrels of brain, and from the body of which, 80 barrels of fat. [...]" The passage continues describing this phenomenon.
