{"id":"01KFNR86WY1GS47784ZHNK2KRV","cid":"bafkreibz2jo2a2rxrg7fdfccnlvis5hickdlqdkhncphniit6vlbjx4nny","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5696,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.928Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":5632,"text":"and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference\r\nto nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past\r\ndays, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was\r\nto them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a\r\nnew proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,—the\r\nGreenland whale is deposed,—the great sperm whale now reigneth!\r\n\r\nThere are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the\r\nliving sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest\r\ndegree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale’s and Bennett’s;\r\nboth in their time surgeons to English South-Sea whale-ships, and both\r\nexact and reliable men. The original matter touching the sperm whale to\r\nbe found in their volumes is necessarily small; but so far as it goes,\r\nit is of excellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific\r\ndescription. As yet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic,\r\nlives not complete in any literature. Far above all other hunted\r\nwhales, his is an unwritten life.\r\n\r\nNow the various species of whales need some sort of popular\r\ncomprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the\r\npresent, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent\r\nlaborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I\r\nhereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete;\r\nbecause any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very\r\nreason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical\r\ndescription of the various species, or—in this place at least—to much\r\nof any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of\r\na systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.\r\n\r\nBut it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the\r\nPost-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea\r\nafter them; to have one’s hands among the unspeakable foundations,\r\nribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I\r\nthat I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful\r\ntauntings in Job might well appal me. Will he (the leviathan) make a\r\ncovenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam\r\nthrough libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do with\r\nwhales with these visible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There\r\nare some preliminaries to settle.\r\n\r\nFirst: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology\r\nis in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it\r\nstill remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of\r\nNature, A.D. 1776, Linnæus declares, “I hereby separate the whales from\r\nthe fish.” But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850,\r\nsharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnæus’s express edict,\r\nwere still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the\r\nLeviathan.\r\n\r\nThe grounds upon which Linnæus would fain have banished the whales from\r\nthe waters, he states as follows: “On account of their warm bilocular\r\nheart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem\r\nintrantem feminam mammis lactantem,” and finally, “ex lege naturæ jure\r\nmeritoque.” I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley\r\nCoffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and\r\nthey united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether\r\ninsufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug.\r\n\r\nBe it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned\r\nground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.\r\nThis fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal\r\nrespect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnæus has given\r\nyou those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood;\r\nwhereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84A9QXWBKCWCK87YB232","peer_label":"32","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84A9QXWBKCWCK87YB232","peer_label":"32","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86Y219TCDQ1Q01EBRKET","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR86XBK1FRW03JYQKT0Q49","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.557Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:15.001Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}