{"id":"01KFNR89JY1QRPSKBKNEK3C6KV","cid":"bafkreieghfebcpapyenhqea2wtyz42uuamczm5s7ezbgo26whb5r2qdqrq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":13262,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.742Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":13196,"text":"bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious\r\nmarks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the\r\ncreature’s age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the\r\ncertainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the\r\nsavor of analogical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we\r\nmust grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance\r\nwill seem reasonable.\r\n\r\nIn old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies\r\nconcerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous\r\n“whiskers” inside of the whale’s mouth;* another, “hogs’ bristles”; a\r\nthird old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language:\r\n“There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his\r\nupper _chop_, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth.”\r\n\r\n*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or\r\nrather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the\r\nupper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts\r\nimpart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn\r\ncountenance.\r\n\r\nAs every one knows, these same “hogs’ bristles,” “fins,” “whiskers,”\r\n“blinds,” or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and\r\nother stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has\r\nlong been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne’s time that the bone was\r\nin its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those\r\nancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as\r\nyou may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we\r\nnowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a\r\ntent spread over the same bone.\r\n\r\nBut now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and,\r\nstanding in the Right Whale’s mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all\r\nthese colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not\r\nthink you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its\r\nthousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest\r\nTurkey—the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the\r\nmouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting\r\nit on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I\r\nshould say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that\r\namount of oil.\r\n\r\nEre this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started\r\nwith—that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely\r\ndifferent heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale’s there is no\r\ngreat well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible\r\nof a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale’s. Nor in the Sperm Whale are\r\nthere any of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely\r\nanything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external\r\nspout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one.\r\n\r\nLook your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet\r\nlie together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other\r\nwill not be very long in following.\r\n\r\nCan you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale’s there? It is the same\r\nhe died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now\r\nfaded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like\r\nplacidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the\r\nother head’s expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by\r\naccident against the vessel’s side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw.\r\nDoes not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical\r\nresolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a\r\nStoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in\r\nhis latter years.\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84D0E01YNQDD2SZBKGBE","peer_label":"75","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84D0E01YNQDD2SZBKGBE","peer_label":"75","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":"01KFNR89NGHXX4175V7QQAMXME","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.225Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:19.998Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}