.. < chapter lxxvi 24  THE BATTERING-RAM >


     Ere quitting, for the nonce, the

Sperm Whale's head, I would have you, as a sensible physiologist, simply

--particularly remark its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness.  I

would have you investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself

some unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may

be lodged there.  Here is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily

settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of

the most appalling,

.. <p 335 >

but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded

history.  You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm

Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the

water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably

backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which

receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is entirely

under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth were

entirely under your chin.  Moreover you observe that the whale has no external

nose; and that what nose he has --his spout hole --is on the top of his head;

you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides of his head, nearly one

third of his entire length from the front.  Wherefore, you must now have

perceived that the front of the Sperm Whale's head is a dead, blind wall,

without a single organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever.

Furthermore, you are now to consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward

sloping part of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone;


     and not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the

full cranial development.  So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one

wad.  Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise

the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of the

substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy.  In some

previous place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the body of the

whale, as the rind wraps an orange.  Just so with the head; but with this

difference: about the head this envelope, though not so thick, is of a

boneless toughness,  inestimable by any man who has not handled it.  The

severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by the strongest human

arm, impotently rebounds from it.  It is as though the forehead of the Sperm

Whale were paved with horses' hoofs.  I do not think that any sensation lurks

in it.  Bethink yourself also of another thing.  When two large, loaded

Indiamen chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do

the sailors do?  They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming

contact, any merely hard substance,

.. <p 336 >

like iron or wood.  No, they hold there a large, round wad of tow and cork,

enveloped in the thickest and toughest of ox-hide.  That bravely and uninjured

takes the jam which would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron

crowbars.  By itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive

at.  But supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that

as ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them, capable,

at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, as far as I

know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, the otherwise

inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head altogether beneath the

surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out of the water; considering

the unobstructed elasticity of its envelop; considering the unique interior

of his head; it has hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical

lung-celled honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and

unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to

atmospheric distension and contraction.  If this be so, fancy the

irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and destructive

of all elements contributes.  Now, mark.  Unerringly impelling this dead,

impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there

swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately

estimated as piled wood is --by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as

the smallest insect.  So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the

specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this

expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable

braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity,

and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage

through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you

would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow.  For unless you own the whale,

you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth.  But clear Truth is a

thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the

provincials then?  What befel the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's

veil at Sais?

.. <p 337 >

