{"id":"01KG8AP3WQ9PV7R5QKTNV1R9KK","cid":"bafkreihtqz4vv64a3n2eqqmuqxobexpvlihiue7flncb6x35cvumztr74i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":17646,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.774Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":17593,"text":"intercepted 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\nWhen I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks,\r\njaws, ribs, and vertebræ, all characterized by partial resemblances to\r\nthe existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on\r\nthe other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical\r\nLeviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back to\r\nthat wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for\r\ntime began with man. Here Saturn’s grey chaos rolls over me, and I\r\nobtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when\r\nwedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and\r\nin all the 25,000 miles of this world’s circumference, not an\r\ninhabitable hand’s breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world\r\nwas the whale’s; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the\r\npresent lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree\r\nlike Leviathan? Ahab’s harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh’s.\r\nMethuselah seems a school-boy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I\r\nam horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the\r\nunspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time,\r\nmust needs exist after all humane ages are over.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AMATAM2NSJ8EXKXVZHA5M","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP32JSKGQCCHN42PMJQK7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP3WXMH6YJZEWDCVJDR95","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:32.055Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:55.376Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}