{"id":"01KFNR89NK0G6V63CY8EW5DH26","cid":"bafkreiep5ejqqybi52b7zr2yzlxhcqt7vyxnpybjffhbhzxaojct4mfpfe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":14618,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.759Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 26","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":14564,"text":"But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out!\r\nYou have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not\r\ntell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to\r\nsettle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the\r\nknottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand\r\nin it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.\r\n\r\nThe central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping\r\nit; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it,\r\nwhen, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view\r\nof his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all\r\naround him. And if at such times you should think that you really\r\nperceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are\r\nnot merely condensed from its vapor; or how do you know that they are\r\nnot those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole\r\nfissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale’s head? For\r\neven when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with\r\nhis elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary’s in the desert; even then,\r\nthe whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under a\r\nblazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with\r\nrain.\r\n\r\nNor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the\r\nprecise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering\r\ninto it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to\r\nthis fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into\r\nslight contact with the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will\r\noften happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of\r\nthe thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer\r\ncontact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or\r\notherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.\r\nWherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to\r\nevade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt\r\nit, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind\r\nyou. The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is\r\nto let this deadly spout alone.\r\n\r\nStill, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My\r\nhypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides\r\nother reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations\r\ntouching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; I\r\naccount him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed\r\nfact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other\r\nwhales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am\r\nconvinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as\r\nPlato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes\r\nup a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep\r\nthoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the\r\ncuriosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected\r\nthere, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over\r\nmy head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep\r\nthought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an\r\nAugust noon; this seems an additional argument for the above\r\nsupposition.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 26"},"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":"01KFNR89QDM431T0E0VGWZSXNJ","peer_label":"Chunk 27","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR89PDD84DKD3V0C0YP1EZ","peer_label":"Chunk 25","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.270Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.695Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}