{"id":"01KJNXJV781NZMQV66Q0046PWB","cid":"bafkreibioeoowsia26y3mglrskjkdg77mwttxinw55ggnnxdq637slff24","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":831242,"char_start":823644,"chunk_index":116,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1900,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"spiracle. Because the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be,\r\nwhen in feeding he accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale’s\r\nfood is far beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he\r\nwould. Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your\r\nwatch, you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating\r\nrhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of\r\nrespiration.\r\n\r\nBut why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out!\r\nYou have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not\r\ntell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to\r\nsettle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the\r\nknottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand\r\nin it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.\r\n\r\nThe central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping\r\nit; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it,\r\nwhen, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view\r\nof his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all\r\naround him. And if at such times you should think that you really\r\nperceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are\r\nnot merely condensed from its vapor; or how do you know that they are\r\nnot those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole\r\nfissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale’s head? For\r\neven when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with\r\nhis elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary’s in the desert; even then,\r\nthe whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under a\r\nblazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with\r\nrain.\r\n\r\nNor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the\r\nprecise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering\r\ninto it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to\r\nthis fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into\r\nslight contact with the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will\r\noften happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of\r\nthe thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer\r\ncontact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or\r\notherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.\r\nWherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to\r\nevade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt\r\nit, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind\r\nyou. The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is\r\nto let this deadly spout alone.\r\n\r\nStill, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My\r\nhypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides\r\nother reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations\r\ntouching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; I\r\naccount him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed\r\nfact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other\r\nwhales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am\r\nconvinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as\r\nPlato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes\r\nup a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep\r\nthoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the\r\ncuriosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected\r\nthere, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over\r\nmy head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep\r\nthought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an\r\nAugust noon; this seems an additional argument for the above\r\nsupposition.\r\n\r\nAnd how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to\r\nbehold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild\r\nhead overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable\r\ncontemplations, and that vapor—as you will sometimes see it—glorified\r\nby a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts.\r\nFor, d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate\r\nvapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my\r\nmind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a\r\nheavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny;\r\nbut doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of\r\nall things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this\r\ncombination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who\r\nregards them both with equal eye.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 86. The Tail.\r\n\r\nOther poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope,\r\nand the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial,\r\nI celebrate a tail.\r\n\r\nReckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale’s tail to begin at that point\r\nof the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises\r\nupon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet.\r\nThe compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat\r\npalms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in\r\nthickness. At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap,\r\nthen sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy\r\nbetween. In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely\r\ndefined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost\r\nexpansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed\r\ntwenty feet across.\r\n\r\nThe entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut\r\ninto it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:—upper,\r\nmiddle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long\r\nand horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running\r\ncrosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as\r\nanything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman\r\nwalls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin\r\ncourse of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful\r\nrelics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the\r\ngreat strength of the masonry.\r\n\r\nBut as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough,\r\nthe whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of\r\nmuscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins\r\nand running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and\r\nlargely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent\r\nmeasureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point.\r\nCould annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it.\r\n\r\nNor does this—its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful\r\nflexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through a\r\nTitanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most\r\nappalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or\r\nharmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly\r\nbeautiful, strength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied\r\ntendons that all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved\r\nHercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the\r\nlinen sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with\r\nthe massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch.\r\nWhen Angelo paints even God the Father in human form, mark what\r\nrobustness is 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":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.080Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.080Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}