{"id":"01KJNXJV6PJQDBA6VM3X57EJ0V","cid":"bafkreia5qhnjbztv6rqg7awx3rzj42cyjgiqpfdy6stl32kfofragli7vq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":747036,"char_start":739435,"chunk_index":104,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1901,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"stumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There are generally\r\nforty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed;\r\nnor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn\r\ninto slabs, and piled away like joists for building houses.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 75. The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View.\r\n\r\nCrossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the Right\r\nWhale’s head.\r\n\r\nAs in general shape the noble Sperm Whale’s head may be compared to a\r\nRoman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly\r\nrounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale’s head bears a rather\r\ninelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred\r\nyears ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a\r\nshoemaker’s last. And in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the\r\nnursery tale, with the swarming brood, might very comfortably be\r\nlodged, she and all her progeny.\r\n\r\nBut as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different\r\naspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit\r\nand look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole\r\nhead for an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in\r\nits sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange,\r\ncrested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass—this green,\r\nbarnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the “crown,” and the\r\nSouthern fishers the “bonnet” of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes\r\nsolely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak,\r\nwith a bird’s nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those\r\nlive crabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost\r\nsure to occur to you; unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the\r\ntechnical term “crown” also bestowed upon it; in which case you will\r\ntake great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a\r\ndiademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for\r\nhim in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a\r\nvery sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower\r\nlip! what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by\r\ncarpenter’s measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a\r\nsulk and pout that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more.\r\n\r\nA great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped.\r\nThe fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an\r\nimportant interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when\r\nearthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery\r\nthreshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at\r\nMackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good\r\nLord! is this the road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet\r\nhigh, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular\r\nridge-pole there; while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us\r\nwith those wondrous, half vertical, scimetar-shaped slats of whalebone,\r\nsay three hundred on a side, which depending from the upper part of the\r\nhead or crown bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere\r\nbeen cursorily mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with\r\nhairy fibres, through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in\r\nwhose intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes\r\nthrough the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of\r\nbone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious\r\nmarks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the\r\ncreature’s age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the\r\ncertainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the\r\nsavor of analogical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we\r\nmust grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance\r\nwill seem reasonable.\r\n\r\nIn old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies\r\nconcerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous\r\n“whiskers” inside of the whale’s mouth;* another, “hogs’ bristles”; a\r\nthird old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language:\r\n“There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his\r\nupper _chop_, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth.”\r\n\r\n*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or\r\nrather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the\r\nupper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts\r\nimpart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn\r\ncountenance.\r\n\r\nAs every one knows, these same “hogs’ bristles,” “fins,” “whiskers,”\r\n“blinds,” or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and\r\nother stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has\r\nlong been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne’s time that the bone was\r\nin its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those\r\nancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as\r\nyou may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we\r\nnowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a\r\ntent spread over the same bone.\r\n\r\nBut now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and,\r\nstanding in the Right Whale’s mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all\r\nthese colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not\r\nthink you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its\r\nthousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest\r\nTurkey—the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the\r\nmouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting\r\nit on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I\r\nshould say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that\r\namount of oil.\r\n\r\nEre this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started\r\nwith—that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely\r\ndifferent heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale’s there is no\r\ngreat well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible\r\nof a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale’s. Nor in the Sperm Whale are\r\nthere any of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely\r\nanything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external\r\nspout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one.\r\n\r\nLook your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet\r\nlie together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other\r\nwill not be very long in following.\r\n\r\nCan you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale’s there? It is the same\r\nhe died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now\r\nfaded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like\r\nplacidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the\r\nother head’s expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by\r\naccident against the vessel’s side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw.\r\nDoes not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical\r\nresolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a\r\nStoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in\r\nhis latter years.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.\r\n\r\nEre quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale’s head, I would have you,\r\nas a sensible physiologist, simply—particularly remark its front\r\naspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you\r\ninvestigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some\r\nunexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may\r\nbe lodged there."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.062Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.062Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}