{"id":"01KJNXJQWJ7E5GHTGG3T0J3CQ0","cid":"bafkreic43edb5a2gjmsx72liqkguoi2w3tbdyxxse4xabjnvkrohgb2lmq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":313846,"char_start":306287,"chunk_index":43,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1890,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea\r\nafter them; to have one’s hands among the unspeakable foundations,\r\nribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I\r\nthat I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful\r\ntauntings in Job might well appal me. Will he (the leviathan) make a\r\ncovenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam\r\nthrough libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do with\r\nwhales with these visible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There\r\nare some preliminaries to settle.\r\n\r\nFirst: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology\r\nis in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it\r\nstill remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of\r\nNature, A.D. 1776, Linnæus declares, “I hereby separate the whales from\r\nthe fish.” But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850,\r\nsharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnæus’s express edict,\r\nwere still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the\r\nLeviathan.\r\n\r\nThe grounds upon which Linnæus would fain have banished the whales from\r\nthe waters, he states as follows: “On account of their warm bilocular\r\nheart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem\r\nintrantem feminam mammis lactantem,” and finally, “ex lege naturæ jure\r\nmeritoque.” I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley\r\nCoffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and\r\nthey united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether\r\ninsufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug.\r\n\r\nBe it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned\r\nground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.\r\nThis fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal\r\nrespect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnæus has given\r\nyou those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood;\r\nwhereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.\r\n\r\nNext: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as\r\nconspicuously to label him for all time to come? To be short, then, a\r\nwhale is _a spouting fish with a horizontal tail_. There you have him.\r\nHowever contracted, that definition is the result of expanded\r\nmeditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a\r\nfish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is\r\nstill more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have\r\nnoticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a\r\nvertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail,\r\nthough it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal\r\nposition.\r\n\r\nBy the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude\r\nfrom the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified\r\nwith the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on the other\r\nhand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as\r\nalien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish\r\nmust be included in this ground-plan of Cetology. Now, then, come the\r\ngrand divisions of the entire whale host.\r\n\r\n*I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and\r\nDugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are\r\nincluded by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish\r\nare a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers,\r\nand feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny\r\ntheir credentials as whales; and have presented them with their\r\npassports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology.\r\n\r\nFirst: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary\r\nBOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them\r\nall, both small and large.\r\n\r\nI. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE.\r\n\r\nAs the type of the FOLIO I present the _Sperm Whale_; of the OCTAVO,\r\nthe _Grampus_; of the DUODECIMO, the _Porpoise_.\r\n\r\nFOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:—I. The\r\n_Sperm Whale_; II. the _Right Whale_; III. the _Fin-Back Whale_; IV.\r\nthe _Hump-backed Whale_; V. the _Razor Back Whale_; VI. the _Sulphur\r\nBottom Whale_.\r\n\r\nBOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER I. (_Sperm Whale_).—This whale, among the\r\nEnglish of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter\r\nwhale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the\r\nFrench, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the\r\nLong Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe;\r\nthe most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in\r\naspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being the\r\nonly creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is\r\nobtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged\r\nupon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically\r\nconsidered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was\r\nalmost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil\r\nwas only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days\r\nspermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a\r\ncreature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland\r\nor Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was\r\nthat quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable\r\nof the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was\r\nexceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment\r\nand medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you\r\nnowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of\r\ntime, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was\r\nstill retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a\r\nnotion so strangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation\r\nmust at last have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this\r\nspermaceti was really derived.\r\n\r\nBOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER II. (_Right Whale_).—In one respect this is\r\nthe most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly\r\nhunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or\r\nbaleen; and the oil specially known as “whale oil,” an inferior article\r\nin commerce. Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated by\r\nall the following titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale; the Black\r\nWhale; the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right Whale. There is a\r\ndeal of obscurity concerning the identity of the species thus\r\nmultitudinously baptised. What then is the whale, which I include in\r\nthe second species of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the\r\nEnglish naturalists; the Greenland Whale of the English whalemen; the\r\nBaleine Ordinaire of the French whalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the\r\nSwedes. It is the whale which for more than two centuries past has been\r\nhunted by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas; it is the whale\r\nwhich the American fishermen have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on\r\nthe Brazil Banks, on the Nor’ West Coast, and various other parts of\r\nthe world, designated by them Right Whale Cruising Grounds.\r\n\r\nSome pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of the\r\nEnglish and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree\r\nin all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented a single\r\ndeterminate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.666Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.666Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}