{"id":"01KFNR89MGXNM5A7DXKM1ZPPMK","cid":"bafkreifwcmppeqmby5avas7o4hkzajfxlrysczzs5f2lshkyswr3fr54hm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":14008,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.749Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 13","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":13950,"text":"mad cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a\r\ntilbury on a plain—makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to\r\nhim that way; and there’s danger of being pitched out too, when you\r\nstrike a hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he’s going\r\nto Davy Jones—all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this\r\nwhale carries the everlasting mail!”\r\n\r\nBut the monster’s run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he\r\ntumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round\r\nthe loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them;\r\nwhile so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would\r\nsoon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they\r\ncaught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at\r\nlast—owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of\r\nthe boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue—the\r\ngunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three\r\nsterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for\r\nsome time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more\r\nline, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have\r\nbeen taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this “holding on,” as\r\nit is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from\r\nthe back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising\r\nagain to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the\r\nperil of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always\r\nthe best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the\r\nstricken whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because,\r\nowing to the enormous surface of him—in a full grown sperm whale\r\nsomething less than 2000 square feet—the pressure of the water is\r\nimmense. We all know what an astonishing atmospheric weight we\r\nourselves stand up under; even here, above-ground, in the air; how\r\nvast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a column of two\r\nhundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the weight of fifty\r\natmospheres. One whaleman has estimated it at the weight of twenty\r\nline-of-battle ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on\r\nboard.\r\n\r\nAs the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down\r\ninto its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any\r\nsort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths;\r\nwhat landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and\r\nplacidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in\r\nagony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows.\r\nSeems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan\r\nwas suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and\r\nto what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was\r\nonce so triumphantly said—“Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons?\r\nor his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him\r\ncannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron\r\nas straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble;\r\nhe laugheth at the shaking of a spear!” This the creature? this he? Oh!\r\nthat unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength of\r\na thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the\r\nmountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod’s fish-spears!\r\n\r\nIn that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats\r\nsent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad\r\nenough to shade half Xerxes’ army. Who can tell how appalling to the\r\nwounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head!\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 13"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84AAHSNQ4BFJ0ASPHB53","peer_label":"76","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84AAHSNQ4BFJ0ASPHB53","peer_label":"76","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":"01KFNR89NDM920YXE2K7Z3FWMG","peer_label":"Chunk 14","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR89KXR5AM4SMNEBPX0KMX","peer_label":"Chunk 12","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.189Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.691Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}