Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER 74

  The Sperm Whale's Head - Contrasted View

  Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together;let us join them, and lay together our own.

  Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale andthe Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the onlywhales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they presentthe two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale.As the external difference between them is mainly observablein their heads; and as a head of each is this moment hanging fromthe Pequod's side; and as we may freely go from one to the other,by merely stepping across the deck:--where, I should like to know,will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology than here?

  In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast betweenthese heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but, there is acertain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale's which the Right Whale'ssadly lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale's head.As you behold it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiorityto him, in point of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too,this dignity is heightened by the pepper and salt color of his headat the summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience.In short, he is what the fishermen technically call a "grey-headed whale."

  Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads--namely, the two most important organs, the eye and the ear.Far back on the side of the head, and low down, near the angleof either whale's jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last seea lashless eye, which you would fancy to be a young colt's eye;so out of all proportion is it to the magnitude of the head.

  Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes,it is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead,no more than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the positionof the whale's eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears;and you may fancy, for yourself, how it would fare with you,did you sideways survey objects through your ears.You would find that you could only command some thirty degreesof vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight;and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe werewalking straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day,you would not be able to see him, any more than if he werestealing upon you from behind. In a word, you would havetwo backs, so to speak; but, at the same time, also, two fronts(side fronts): for what is it that makes the front of a man--what, indeed, but his eyes?

  Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of,the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend theirvisual power, so as to produce one picture and not twoto the brain; the peculiar position of the whale's eyes,effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of solid head,which towers between them like a great mountain separatingtwo lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separatethe impressions which each independent organ imparts.The whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture on this side,and another distinct picture on that side; while allbetween must be profound darkness and nothingness to him.Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the worldfrom a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window.But with the whale, these two sashes are separately inserted,making two distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view.This peculiarity of the whale's eyes is a thing always to beborne in mind in the fishery; and to be remembered by the readerin some subsequent scenes.

  A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerningthis visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be contentwith a hint. So long as a man's eyes are open in the light,the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot thenhelp mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him.Nevertheless, any one's experience will teach him, that thoughhe can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance,it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely,to examine any two things--however large or however small--at one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lieside by side and touch each other. But if you now cometo separate these two objects, and surround each by a circleof profound darkness; then, in order to see one of them,in such a manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the otherwill be utterly excluded from your contemporary consciousness.How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves,must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehensive,combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same momentof time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on oneside of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction?If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a manwere able simultaneously to go through the demonstrationsof two distinct problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated,is there any incongruity in this comparison.

  It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me,that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayedby some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidityand liability to queer frights, so common to such whales;I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helplessperplexity of volition, in which their divided and diametricallyopposite powers of vision must involve them.

  But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye.If you are an entire stranger to their race, you might huntover these two heads for hours, and never discover that organ.The ear has no external leaf whatever; and into the hole itselfyou can hardly insert a quill, so wondrously minute is it.It is lodged a little behind the eye. With respect to their ears,this important difference is to be observed between the sperm whaleand the right. While the ears of the former has an external opening,that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane,so as to be quite imperceptible from without.

  Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale shouldsee the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunderthrough an ear which is smaller than a hare's? But if hiseyes were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope;and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals;would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing?Not at all.--Why then do you try to "enlarge" your mind?Subtilize it.

  Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand,cant over the sperm whale's head, so, that it may lie bottom up; then,ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and wereit not that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lanternwe might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach.But let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are.What a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floorto ceiling, lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane,glossy as bridal satins.

  But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw,which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box,with the hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up,so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seemsa terrific portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wightin the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force.But far more terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down inthe sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there suspended,with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging straightdown at right-angles with his body; for all the world like aship's jibboom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited;out of sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hingesof his jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sortof plight, a reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt,imprecate lock-jaws upon him.

  In most cases this lower jaw--being easily unhinged by a practised artist--is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extractingthe ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebonewith which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articlesincluding canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to riding-whips.

  With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board,as if it were an anchor; and when the proper time comes--some few days after the other work--Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego,being all accomplished dentists, are set to drawing teeth.With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances the gums;then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle beingrigged from aloft, they drag out these
teeth, as Michigan oxendrag stumps of old oaks out of wild woodlands. There aregenerally forty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down,but undecayed; nor filled after our artificial fashion.The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joistsfor building houses.