The Sea Inside

greater in water; and that their eyes appeared adapted to see better in the same medium. Yet his own eye was by no means unerring, as Richard Owen, who would become assistant conservator of the collection, made clear in a later edition of Hunter’s works. For instance, when Hunter claimed that the whale’s larynx had no function other than in respiration, Owen deferred to his learned friend and co-editor, Thomas Bell, who considered ‘the evidence to be strong, if not incontestable, in favour of the existence of a voice in the Cetacea. It is variously described as a bellow, a grunt, or a melancholy cry …’
    Those cries remained unheard as Hunter boiled down whales’ bodies in his backyard, while copper vats bubbled to prove the purity of spermaceti oil and its point of crystallisation, turning Earl’s Court into a whaling station, and its outhouses into ossuaries. Now the remains of these Georgian whales stand arranged in their constituent parts, ready for inspection or even reassembly, should necessity arise; we might genetically re-engineer Eden from these glass shelves and their duly labelled jars. Meanwhile, down in the entrance hall, whale skulls and teeth lie unbiting in dark wooden cabinets, as hippos and rhinos yawn fleshlessly beside them.
    John Hunter died in 1793 in mid-argument from a fit of angina, probably induced by his syphilis-weakened heart. Nevertheless his collection, which had been displayed at his house in Leicester Square and which was transferred to the College of Surgeons in 1799, continued to grow. The Hunterian Museum was established in 1811, and expanded in 1855 by Richard Owen. In 1941, three-quarters of the collection was destroyed in a German air raid, smashing into splintered bone and shattered glass the specimens so painstakingly assembled over the centuries, including Chunee’s skeleton. Hunter’s house in Earl’s Court had long since been demolished – having outlived its subsequent use as a private lunatic asylum for ladies, complete with a ‘seclusion room’ lined with painted canvas. When the site was raked over for redevelopment, bone-filled pits were found, along with evidence of the scientist’s experiments into the grafting of trees, their bark excised in the same way he would reduce a limb for amputation; all now covered up by new constructions while lorries thundered along roads which once carried the carcases of whales.

    The building is 1930s, brick with white Crittall windows, set back from the street. It might house offices or light industry. Inside, the corridors have the unmistakable smell of an institution. From Rob Deaville’s cluttered office – filled with books and equipment and, in one corner, polystyrene containers covered by a sheet of glass under which flies are buzzing in some kind of experiment – I’m led downstairs, past rooms in which young students’ faces are lit by screens, into a space that is part changing room, part prison visiting area.
    The anteroom is divided into two by a low wooden-slatted bench. One side of the tiled floor, Rob tells me, is ‘dirty’; the other is ‘clean’. He hands me a well-laundered lab coat, fastened with a row of poppers up one side. As I climb over the bench, I pull a pair of elasticated blue protectors over my boots. My camera, pen and notebook are placed by a sliding glass partition, from where I collect them on the other side.
    The laboratory is lined with cabinets containing various instruments. On the far side of the room garage-like doors open out to a view of the trees of Regent’s Park. Just over the concrete wall is the zoo and its unseen but vocal inhabitants.
    It’s a quiet, warm afternoon, the last day in October.
    Matt, Rob’s colleague, goes through the doors and opens a freezer the size of a small car. From it he pulls a black bin-liner, almost as big as him. It is evidently very heavy. With Rob’s help he lifts it to a pair of industrial scales, the thick chains of the pulley system dangling overhead as if in a garage.
    I stand, waiting, anxiously. The black plastic bag and its contents are hoisted onto a large stainless-steel dissection table, complete with a sink and drain hole. Rob is talking to me, but I’m not paying attention, because over his shoulder I can see Matt unwrapping the object from the plastic.
    From inside the black a slick of brown and red appears. Without ceremony, the subject of this afternoon’s study is revealed: a harbour porpoise,
Phocoena