{"id":"01KJNXJV8QE7HPCSCRNKSRHYZT","cid":"bafkreihar5v2sqowdmbp73f43yiauwqydwdrqbkgjoyvpjuhgc4pxil4fi","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":1014625,"char_start":1007085,"chunk_index":142,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1885,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"\r\n“Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams\r\nof which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous size are\r\noftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine,\r\nthat by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no Whale can\r\npass it without immediate death. But the truth of the Matter is, that\r\non either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into\r\nthe Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon ’em. They keep a\r\nWhale’s Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the\r\nGround with its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which\r\ncannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel’s Back. This Rib (says John\r\nLeo) is said to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their\r\nHistorians affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy’d of Mahomet, came from\r\nthis Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas\r\nwas cast forth by the Whale at the Base of the Temple.”\r\n\r\nIn this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a\r\nNantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?\r\n\r\nInasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from\r\nthe head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether,\r\nin the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the\r\noriginal bulk of his sires.\r\n\r\nBut upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the\r\npresent day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are\r\nfound in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period\r\nprior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those\r\nbelonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier\r\nones.\r\n\r\nOf all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the\r\nAlabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than\r\nseventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen,\r\nthat the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a\r\nlarge sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen’s authority,\r\nthat Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the\r\ntime of capture.\r\n\r\nBut may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an\r\nadvance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may\r\nit not be, that since Adam’s time they have degenerated?\r\n\r\nAssuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of\r\nsuch gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For\r\nPliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and\r\nAldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in length—Rope\r\nWalks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and\r\nSolander, Cooke’s naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy\r\nof Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or\r\nWrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three\r\nhundred and sixty feet. And Lacépède, the French naturalist, in his\r\nelaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page\r\n3), sets down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and\r\ntwenty-eight feet. And this work was published so late as A.D. 1825.\r\n\r\nBut will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is\r\nas big as his ancestors in Pliny’s time. And if ever I go where Pliny\r\nis, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so.\r\nBecause I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies\r\nthat were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not\r\nmeasure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks;\r\nand while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest\r\nEgyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they\r\nare drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize\r\ncattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the\r\nfattest of Pharaoh’s fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not\r\nadmit that of all animals the whale alone should have degenerated.\r\n\r\nBut still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more\r\nrecondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient\r\nlook-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even\r\nthrough Behring’s straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and\r\nlockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along\r\nall continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long\r\nendure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not\r\nat last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the\r\nlast man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final\r\npuff.\r\n\r\nComparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo,\r\nwhich, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the\r\nprairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and\r\nscowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous\r\nriver-capitals, where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar\r\nan inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem\r\nfurnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy\r\nextinction.\r\n\r\nBut you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a\r\nperiod ago—not a good lifetime—the census of the buffalo in Illinois\r\nexceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day\r\nnot one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the\r\ncause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far\r\ndifferent nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious\r\nan end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales\r\nfor forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank\r\nGod, if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the\r\ndays of the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West,\r\nwhen the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness\r\nand a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of\r\nmonths, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain\r\nnot forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need\r\nwere, could be statistically stated.\r\n\r\nNor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the\r\ngradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former\r\nyears (the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in\r\nsmall pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in\r\nconsequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more\r\nremunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales,\r\ninfluenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense\r\ncaravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes,\r\nand pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but\r\nwidely separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally\r\nfallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone\r\nwhales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding with\r\nthem, hence that species also is declining. For they are only being\r\ndriven from promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened\r\nwith their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been\r\nvery recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.\r\n\r\nFurthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two\r\nfirm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain\r\nimpregnable."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.127Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.127Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}