{"id":"01KFNR88F0X442BAK9YMZASXVY","cid":"bafkreihvd42bet6qp62dgvhluvhonpg3s7rest7ufbrkecwhp2e5jabeby","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10658,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.445Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":10612,"text":"Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacépède, a great\r\nnaturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are\r\nseveral pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these\r\nare not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland\r\nwhale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long\r\nexperienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its\r\ncounterpart in nature.\r\n\r\nBut the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was\r\nreserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous\r\nBaron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he\r\ngives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that\r\npicture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary\r\nretreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is\r\nnot a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of\r\na whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that\r\npicture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor\r\nin the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that\r\nis, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the\r\npencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us.\r\n\r\nAs for the sign-painters’ whales seen in the streets hanging over the\r\nshops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally\r\nRichard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage;\r\nbreakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of\r\nmariners: their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue\r\npaint.\r\n\r\nBut these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very\r\nsurprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have\r\nbeen taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a\r\ndrawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent\r\nthe noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars.\r\nThough elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living\r\nLeviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The\r\nliving whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen\r\nat sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out\r\nof sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element\r\nit is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily\r\ninto the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations.\r\nAnd, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour\r\nbetween a young sucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan;\r\nyet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a\r\nship’s deck, such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying\r\nshape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself could not\r\ncatch.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84DSE118DF6SYKPTMFZT","peer_label":"55","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84DSE118DF6SYKPTMFZT","peer_label":"55","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":"01KFNR889E8M1VT96V3HGHB7BJ","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR88E3WSBHYQX4GGQJDPAG","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.101Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.523Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}