Part 1 Chapter 1 Summary

Around the year 1866 sailors begin to report sightings of a strange object that is probably a whale. It is spindle-shaped and huge: about three miles long and a mile wide. It travels very fast, lights up at night and can spout water. These facts make the object unlike anything ever reported in the history of sea travel.

Sailors on the Governor Higginson saw it July 20, 1866, near Australia. Others aboard the Columbus observed it for three days between July 23 and July 27, 1866. Two weeks later "the monster" was spotted again by people aboard two steamers between the United States and Europe. They estimate it to be at least three hundred miles long. This unknown "monster" became very fashionable in the press as well as in theaters and songs. It caught the public's imagination all over the world.

Meanwhile, university professors and other scholars...