.. < chapter lxxx 2  THE NUT >


     If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a

Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it

is impossible to square.  In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at

least twenty feet in length.  Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of

this skull is as the side view of a moderately inclined plane resting

throughout on a level base.  But in life --as we have elsewhere seen --this

inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous

superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm.  At the high end the skull forms a

crater to bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this

crater -- in another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many

in depth --reposes the mere handful of this monster's brain.  The brain is at

least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away

behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified

fortifications of Quebec.  So like a choice casket is it secreted in him,

that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the Sperm Whale

has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one formed by the

cubic-yards of his sperm magazine.  Lying in strange folds, courses, and

convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more in keeping with the idea

of his general might to regard that mystic part of him as the seat of his

intelligence.  It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this

Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion.  As

for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any.

The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common

world.  If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view

of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be

.. <p 347 >

struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation,

and from the same point of view.  Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled

down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would

involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on one

part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say --This man had no

self-esteem, and no veneration.  And by those negations, considered along with

the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to

yourself the truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the

most exalted potency is.  But if from the comparative dimensions of the

whale's proper brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted,

then I have another idea for you.  If you attentively regard almost any

quadruped's spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebrae

to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance

to the skull proper.  It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are

absolutely undeveloped skulls.  But the curious external resemblance, I take

it the Germans were not the first men to perceive.  A foreign friend once

pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the

vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the beaked

prow of his canoe.  Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an

important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum

through the spinal canal.  For I believe that much of a man's character will be

found betokened in his backbone.  I would rather feel your spine than your

skull, whoever you are.  A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and

noble soul.  I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that

flag which I fling half out to the world.  Apply this spinal branch of

phrenology to the Sperm Whale.  His cranial cavity is continuous with the first

neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra the bottom of the spinal canal will

measure ten inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular

figure with the base downwards.  As it passes through the remaining vertebrae

the canal tapers in size, but for a considerable distance remains of large

capacity.  Now, of course, this

.. <p 348 >

canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance -- the spinal

cord --as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain.  And what is

still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's cavity, the spinal

cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain.

Under all these circumstances, would it be unreasonable to survey and map

out the whale's spine phrenologically?  For, viewed in this light, the

wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated

by the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord.  But leaving this

hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I would merely assume the

spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the sperm whale's hump.  This

august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebrae, and

is, therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it.  From its relative

situation then, I should call this high hump the organ of firmness or

indomitableness in the Sperm Whale.  And that the great monster is

indomitable, you will yet have reason to know.

.. <p 348 >

