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, 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, 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
crow-bars. 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
Lais?