{"id":"01KG8AP32JD736QD33YX9MEBRM","cid":"bafkreifc6uwww3rb32efv5a55bvnzp5pdttxfhx2isfmiqmqjlgtn6sdiy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":17541,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.774Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":17497,"text":"of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From\r\nthat part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only\r\nspanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore\r\na seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most\r\narched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay\r\nfootpath bridges over small streams.\r\n\r\nIn considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the\r\ncircumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of\r\nthe whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of\r\nthe Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the\r\nfish which, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of\r\nthe invested body of this particular whale must have been at least\r\nsixteen feet; whereas, the corresponding rib measured but little more\r\nthan eight feet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion\r\nof the living magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I\r\nnow saw but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with\r\ntons of added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for\r\nthe ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints; and in place of\r\nthe weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank!\r\n\r\nHow vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try\r\nto comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his\r\ndead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in\r\nthe heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his\r\nangry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully\r\ninvested whale be truly and livingly found out.\r\n\r\nBut the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a\r\ncrane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now\r\nit’s done, it looks much like Pompey’s Pillar.\r\n\r\nThere are forty and odd vertebræ in all, which in the skeleton are not\r\nlocked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a\r\nGothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, a\r\nmiddle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth\r\nmore than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the\r\ntail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white\r\nbilliard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they\r\nhad been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest’s children,\r\nwho had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the\r\nspine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into\r\nsimple child’s play.\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AMA8ZV3Z2Z8TN1DDZZ7K2","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP32C1TB9RRD0W3A7Z52Y","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:31.218Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:54.768Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}