{"id":"01KFNR888FP6BWQ32XREAVWZP9","cid":"bafkreiccx56ddxnsnlyfmblmiqpfmzm6cz7tprtbktn5ajd3bx6dusluba","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8132,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.426Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":8069,"text":"  ocean into districts of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of\r\n  longitude; perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve\r\n  columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each of which\r\n  districts are three lines; one to show the number of days that have\r\n  been spent in each month in every district, and the two others to\r\n  show the number of days in which whales, sperm or right, have been\r\n  seen.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBesides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the\r\nsperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct—say, rather, secret\r\nintelligence from the Deity—mostly swim in _veins_, as they are called;\r\ncontinuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating\r\nexactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with one\r\ntithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the\r\ndirection taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor’s parallel,\r\nand though the line of advance be strictly confined to its own\r\nunavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary _vein_ in which at these\r\ntimes he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width\r\n(more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract); but\r\nnever exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship’s mast-heads, when\r\ncircumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at\r\nparticular seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating\r\nwhales may with great confidence be looked for.\r\n\r\nAnd hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate\r\nfeeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in crossing\r\nthe widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his\r\nart, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be\r\nwholly without prospect of a meeting.\r\n\r\nThere was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his\r\ndelirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality,\r\nperhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons\r\nfor particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the\r\nherds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year,\r\nsay, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were\r\nfound there the preceding season; though there are peculiar and\r\nunquestionable instances where the contrary of this has proved true. In\r\ngeneral, the same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the\r\nsolitaries and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that\r\nthough Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what\r\nis called the Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on\r\nthe Japanese Coast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to\r\nvisit either of those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she\r\nwould infallibly encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding\r\ngrounds, where he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed\r\nonly his casual stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his\r\nplaces of prolonged abode. And where Ahab’s chances of accomplishing\r\nhis object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to\r\nwhatever way-side, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a\r\nparticular set time or place were attained, when all possibilities\r\nwould become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every\r\npossibility the next thing to a certainty. That particular set time and\r\nplace were conjoined in the one technical phrase—the\r\nSeason-on-the-Line. For there and then, for several consecutive years,\r\nMoby Dick had been periodically descried, lingering in those waters for\r\nawhile, as the sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted\r\ninterval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of\r\nthe deadly encounters with the white whale had taken place; there the\r\nwaves were storied with his deeds; there also was that tragic spot\r\nwhere the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive to his\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84DVP8SYA6W38MV4PDVN","peer_label":"44","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84DVP8SYA6W38MV4PDVN","peer_label":"44","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":"01KFNR888RR2J1A8B8F0B984WN","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR889XYVT61V2CWVEMHGP1","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.738Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.591Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}