{"id":"01KJNXJR1RBJ30ABWT5CMDP95V","cid":"bafkreig5kkjegpa5i5duhw7kjbwzbbir2iuzgxqkafl24reqwmijafrwfe","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":690683,"char_start":682835,"chunk_index":96,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1962,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be\r\nregarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to\r\nspeak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of\r\nthe tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a\r\nnew-born child. But no more of this.\r\n\r\nAssuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin,\r\nas in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one\r\nhundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity,\r\nor rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three\r\nfourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence\r\nbe had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose\r\nmere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten\r\nbarrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three\r\nquarters of the stuff of the whale’s skin.\r\n\r\nIn life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among\r\nthe many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over\r\nobliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in\r\nthick array, something like those in the finest Italian line\r\nengravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the\r\nisinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as\r\nif they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some\r\ninstances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a\r\nveritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations.\r\nThese are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers\r\non the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to\r\nuse in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the\r\nhieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck\r\nwith a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the\r\nfamous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi.\r\nLike those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains\r\nundecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another\r\nthing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm\r\nWhale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially\r\nhis flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by\r\nreason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random\r\naspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast,\r\nwhich Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact\r\nwith vast floating icebergs—I should say, that those rocks must not a\r\nlittle resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me\r\nthat such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact\r\nwith other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large,\r\nfull-grown bulls of the species.\r\n\r\nA word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of the\r\nwhale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long\r\npieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very\r\nhappy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber\r\nas in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho\r\nslipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of\r\nthis cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep\r\nhimself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides.\r\nWhat would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy\r\nseas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other\r\nfish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but\r\nthese, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very\r\nbellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the\r\nlee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn\r\nfire; whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his\r\nblood, and he dies. How wonderful is it then—except after\r\nexplanation—that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as\r\nindispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at\r\nhome, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when\r\nseamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards,\r\nperpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is\r\nfound glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been\r\nproved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than\r\nthat of a Borneo negro in summer.\r\n\r\nIt does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong\r\nindividual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare\r\nvirtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself\r\nafter the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too,\r\nlive in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep\r\nthy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and\r\nlike the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of\r\nthine own.\r\n\r\nBut how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections,\r\nhow few are domed like St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few vast as the\r\nwhale!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 69. The Funeral.\r\n\r\n“Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!”\r\n\r\nThe vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the\r\nbeheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue,\r\nit has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal.\r\nSlowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and\r\nsplashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with\r\nrapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many\r\ninsulting poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats\r\nfurther and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats,\r\nwhat seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the\r\nmurderous din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that\r\nhideous sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon\r\nthe fair face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that\r\ngreat mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite\r\nperspectives.\r\n\r\nThere’s a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all\r\nin pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or\r\nspeckled. In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween,\r\nif peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral\r\nthey most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from\r\nwhich not the mightiest whale is free.\r\n\r\nNor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost\r\nsurvives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war\r\nor blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring\r\nthe swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in\r\nthe sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the\r\nwhale’s unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the\r\nlog—_shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware!_ And for years\r\nafterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly\r\nsheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there\r\nwhen a stick was held. There’s your law of precedents; there’s your\r\nutility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of\r\nold beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in\r\nthe air! There’s orthodoxy!\r\n\r\nThus, while in life the great whale’s body may have been a real terror\r\nto his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a\r\nworld.\r\n\r\nAre you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than\r\nthe Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe\r\nin them.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 70. The Sphynx.\r\n\r\nIt should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping\r\nthe body of the leviathan, he was beheaded."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.832Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.832Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}