{"id":"01KFNR89QDM431T0E0VGWZSXNJ","cid":"bafkreifhratvphxlv5cvszy76kfmbu566fj3ta2w4rb6i3nmjfclgjgrsy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":14670,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.760Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 27","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":14611,"text":"thoughts. 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\nAnd how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to\r\nbehold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild\r\nhead overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable\r\ncontemplations, and that vapor—as you will sometimes see it—glorified\r\nby a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts.\r\nFor, d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate\r\nvapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my\r\nmind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a\r\nheavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny;\r\nbut doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of\r\nall things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this\r\ncombination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who\r\nregards them both with equal eye.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 86. The Tail.\r\n\r\nOther poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope,\r\nand the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial,\r\nI celebrate a tail.\r\n\r\nReckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale’s tail to begin at that point\r\nof the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises\r\nupon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet.\r\nThe compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat\r\npalms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in\r\nthickness. At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap,\r\nthen sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy\r\nbetween. In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely\r\ndefined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost\r\nexpansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed\r\ntwenty feet across.\r\n\r\nThe entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut\r\ninto it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:—upper,\r\nmiddle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long\r\nand horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running\r\ncrosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as\r\nanything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman\r\nwalls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin\r\ncourse of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful\r\nrelics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the\r\ngreat strength of the masonry.\r\n\r\nBut as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough,\r\nthe whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of\r\nmuscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins\r\nand running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and\r\nlargely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent\r\nmeasureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point.\r\nCould annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 27"},"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":"01KFNR89N9ZVA89FV25HDCFQ2H","peer_label":"Chunk 28","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR89NK0G6V63CY8EW5DH26","peer_label":"Chunk 26","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.428Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.785Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}