{"id":"01KG8AP32JSKGQCCHN42PMJQK7","cid":"bafkreihq3mkm7qsyggxb5jmazmt5jbidbcvo5plwuabcx7mvbtpfjrfrmi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":17600,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.774Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":17542,"text":"CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale.\r\n\r\nFrom his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon\r\nto enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not\r\ncompress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial\r\nfolio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and\r\nthe yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic\r\ninvolutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great cables\r\nand hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a\r\nline-of-battle-ship.\r\n\r\nSince I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves me to\r\napprove myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not\r\noverlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him\r\nout to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him\r\nin most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now\r\nremains to magnify him in an archæological, fossiliferous, and\r\nantediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the\r\nLeviathan—to an ant or a flea—such portly terms might justly be deemed\r\nunwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case\r\nis altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest\r\nwords of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been\r\nconvenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have\r\ninvariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased\r\nfor that purpose; because that famous lexicographer’s uncommon personal\r\nbulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author\r\nlike me.\r\n\r\nOne often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject,\r\nthough it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of\r\nthis Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard\r\ncapitals. Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an\r\ninkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my\r\nthoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their\r\noutreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole\r\ncircle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and\r\nmastodons, 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","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AMATAM2NSJ8EXKXVZHA5M","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP3WQ9PV7R5QKTNV1R9KK","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:31.218Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:54.789Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}