{"id":"01KFNR889XYVT61V2CWVEMHGP1","cid":"bafkreiexgozcc6jnn5kfqcdacbhsjgtlta2bwfiylc3fmyefrzx4yqe2vy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8079,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.426Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":8016,"text":"CHAPTER 44. The Chart.\r\n\r\nHad you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that\r\ntook place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his\r\npurpose with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the\r\ntransom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea\r\ncharts, spread them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating\r\nhimself before it, you would have seen him intently study the various\r\nlines and shadings which there met his eye; and with slow but steady\r\npencil trace additional courses over spaces that before were blank. At\r\nintervals, he would refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein\r\nwere set down the seasons and places in which, on various former\r\nvoyages of various ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen.\r\n\r\nWhile thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his\r\nhead, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for ever\r\nthrew shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till\r\nit almost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and\r\ncourses on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing\r\nlines and courses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead.\r\n\r\nBut it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his\r\ncabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they were\r\nbrought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and\r\nothers were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans before\r\nhim, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to\r\nthe more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul.\r\n\r\nNow, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the leviathans,\r\nit might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solitary\r\ncreature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not so did it seem\r\nto Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents; and thereby\r\ncalculating the driftings of the sperm whale’s food; and, also, calling\r\nto mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular\r\nlatitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to\r\ncertainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that\r\nground in search of his prey.\r\n\r\nSo assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the\r\nsperm whale’s resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe\r\nthat, could he be closely observed and studied throughout the world;\r\nwere the logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully\r\ncollated, then the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to\r\ncorrespond in invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the\r\nflights of swallows. On this hint, attempts have been made to construct\r\nelaborate migratory charts of the sperm whale.*\r\n\r\n\r\n  *Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne out by\r\n  an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National\r\n  Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By that circular, it\r\n  appears that precisely such a chart is in course of completion; and\r\n  portions of it are presented in the circular. “This chart divides the\r\n  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","title":"Chunk 0"},"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":"01KFNR888FP6BWQ32XREAVWZP9","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.768Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.516Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}