{"id":"01KFNR88EVTQNN3SCJMBMBJY9T","cid":"bafkreiabj6jpdaambitqwxs3mn7q7knwmm2nnv4hcfs4fgyodz3qrw5xl4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10741,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.446Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":10693,"text":"CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True\r\nPictures of Whaling Scenes.\r\n\r\nIn connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly\r\ntempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them\r\nwhich are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern,\r\nespecially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass\r\nthat matter by.\r\n\r\nI know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale;\r\nColnett’s, Huggins’s, Frederick Cuvier’s, and Beale’s. In the previous\r\nchapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins’s is far\r\nbetter than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale’s is the best. All\r\nBeale’s drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in\r\nthe picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second\r\nchapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no\r\ndoubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is\r\nadmirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the\r\nSperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour;\r\nbut they are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though.\r\n\r\nOf the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; but they\r\nare drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has\r\nbut one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency,\r\nbecause it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you\r\ncan derive anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by\r\nhis living hunters.\r\n\r\nBut, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details\r\nnot the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to be\r\nanywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed, and\r\ntaken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they represent\r\nattacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble\r\nSperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath\r\nthe boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the\r\nair upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of\r\nthe boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon the\r\nmonster’s spine; and standing in that prow, for that one single\r\nincomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the\r\nincensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if\r\nfrom a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and\r\ntrue. The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden\r\npoles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the\r\nswimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions\r\nof affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing\r\ndown upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical\r\ndetails of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I\r\ncould not draw so good a one.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR8491EK6Y5M26G4QG1YCJ","peer_label":"56","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR8491EK6Y5M26G4QG1YCJ","peer_label":"56","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":"01KFNR88ET9C6CQS1MYNGD48RF","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.142Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.477Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}