{"id":"01KFNR89X3XPY4ECPEWS7E7Q07","cid":"bafkreiawmyz4m3x6dtsi5rp3ewjlmfdo2fqgxithk2mglho4asztznlray","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":12146,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.730Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":12102,"text":"CHAPTER 68. The Blanket.\r\n\r\nI have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin\r\nof the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced\r\nwhalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion\r\nremains unchanged; but it is only an opinion.\r\n\r\nThe question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you\r\nknow what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence\r\nof firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and\r\nranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness.\r\n\r\nNow, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any\r\ncreature’s skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet\r\nin point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption;\r\nbecause you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the\r\nwhale’s body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer\r\nof any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin?\r\nTrue, from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with\r\nyour hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat\r\nresembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as\r\nflexible and soft as satin; that is, previous to being dried, when it\r\nnot only contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I\r\nhave several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books.\r\nIt is transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed\r\npage, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a\r\nmagnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales\r\nthrough their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at\r\nhere is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I\r\nadmit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be\r\nregarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to\r\nspeak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of\r\nthe tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a\r\nnew-born child. But no more of this.\r\n\r\nAssuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin,\r\nas in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one\r\nhundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity,\r\nor rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three\r\nfourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence\r\nbe had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose\r\nmere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten\r\nbarrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three\r\nquarters of the stuff of the whale’s skin.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84GNWA7NZ1XE5JHKPMJV","peer_label":"68","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84GNWA7NZ1XE5JHKPMJV","peer_label":"68","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":"01KFNR89WD5VHT15BXC6Q89AS3","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.481Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.586Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}