{"id":"01KFNR8B84NX3XAJFX8FRSYEG9","cid":"bafkreihwapplbvgtecsep7wluvtdrbl7arzicztw554564td4fafmij5nq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":17650,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.399Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":17601,"text":"mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas\r\nof empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding\r\nits suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and\r\nliberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you\r\nmust choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be\r\nwritten on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.\r\n\r\nEre entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my\r\ncredentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I\r\nhave been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and\r\nwells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by\r\nway of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the\r\nearlier geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now\r\nalmost completely extinct; the subsequent relics discovered in what are\r\ncalled the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate\r\nintercepted links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose\r\nremote posterity are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil\r\nWhales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the\r\nlast preceding the superficial formations. And though none of them\r\nprecisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet\r\nsufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking\r\nrank as Cetacean fossils.\r\n\r\nDetached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones\r\nand skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals,\r\nbeen found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England,\r\nin Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.\r\nAmong the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the\r\nyear 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street\r\nopening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones\r\ndisinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon’s\r\ntime. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some\r\nutterly unknown Leviathanic species.\r\n\r\nBut by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost\r\ncomplete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842,\r\non the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken\r\ncredulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the\r\nfallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and\r\nbestowed upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of\r\nit being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned\r\nout that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed\r\nspecies. A significant illustration of the fact, again and again\r\nrepeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but\r\nlittle clue to the shape of his fully invested body. So Owen\r\nrechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the\r\nLondon Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one of the most\r\nextraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted\r\nout of existence.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84EFF59D065Y6QH9FE34","peer_label":"Leg and Arm","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84EFF59D065Y6QH9FE34","peer_label":"Leg and Arm","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":"01KFNR8BARG3Q745JMY03MK9JN","peer_label":"Chunk 5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR8B70BGRJF6WSS7VTKBJ4","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.783Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.702Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}