Narwhal The tusks were staples of the cabinet of curiosities. European knowledge of the tusk's origin developed gradually during the Age of Exploration, as explorers and naturalists began to visit Arctic regions themselves. The narwhal was one of two possible explanations of the giant sea phenomenon written by Jules Verne in his 1870 novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". Verne thought that it would be unlikely that there was such a gigantic narwhal in existence. The size of the narwhal, or "unicorn of the sea", as found by Verne, would have been . For the narwhal to have caused the
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea outlawry is decisively ended by the combination of an international task force and the rebellion of his French captives. Though also widely published and translated, it never attained the lasting popularity of "Twenty Thousand Leagues". More similar to the original Nemo, though with a less finely worked-out character, is Robur in "Robur the Conqueror"—a dark and flamboyant outlaw rebel using an aircraft instead of a submarine—and its sequel "Master of the World". The novel was first translated into English in 1873 by Reverend Lewis Page Mercier. Mercier cut nearly a quarter of Verne's original text and made hundreds of translation