CHAPTER 32

  Cetology

  Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be

lost in its unshored harborless immensities. Ere that come to pass;

ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled

hulls of the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a

matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding

of the more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts

which are to follow.

  It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera,

that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The

classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here

essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid

down.

  "No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is

entitled Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820.

  "It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the

inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups

and families.... Utter confusion exists among the historians of this

animal" (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839.

  "Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters."

"Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea." "A field

strewn with thorns." "All these incomplete indications but serve to

torture us naturalists."

  Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and

Lesson, those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of

real knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and

so in some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many

are the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who

have at large or in little, written of the whale. Run over a few:- The

Authors of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne;

Gesner; Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi;

Sibbald; Brisson; Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron

Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett;

J. Ross Browne; the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T.

Cheever. But to what ultimate generalizing purpose all these have

written, the above cited extracts will show.

  Of the names in this list of whale authors only those following Owen

ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional

harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate

subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing

authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great

sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost

unworthy mentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale

is an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means

the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his

claims, and the profound ignorance which till some seventy years back,

invested the then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which

ignorance to this present day still reigns in all but some few

scientific retreats and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every

way complete. Reference to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the

great poets of past days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale,

without one rival, was to them the monarch of the seas. But the time

has at last come for a new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear

ye! good people all,- the Greenland whale is deposed,- the great sperm

whale now reigneth!

  There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the

living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest

degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale's and

Bennett's; both in their time surgeons to the English South-Sea

whale-ships, and both exact and reliable men. The original matter

touching the sperm whale to be found in their volumes is necessarily

small; but so far as it goes, it is of excellent quality, though

mostly confined to scientific description. As yet, however, the

sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete in any

literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an unwritten

life.

  Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular

comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the

present, hereafter to be filled in all-outward its departments by

subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter

in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing

complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete must for

that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute

anatomical description of the various species, or- in this space at

least- to much of any description. My object here is simply to project

the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect,

not the builder.

  But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the

Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea

after them; to have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations,

ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I

that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful

tauntings in Job might well appal me. "Will he (the leviathan) make

a covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have

swam through libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do

with whales with these visible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try.

There are some preliminaries to settle.

  First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of

Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some

quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In

his System of Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, "I hereby separate

the whales from the fish." But of my own knowledge, I know that down

to the year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against

Linnaeus's express edict, were still found dividing the possession

of the same seas with the Leviathan.

  The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the

whales from the waters, he states as follows: "On account of their

warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their moveable eyelids, their

hollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem," and finally,

"ex lege naturae jure meritoque." I submitted all this to my friends

Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of

mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the

reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely

hinted they were humbug.

  Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old

fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to

back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what

internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above,

Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief they are these: lungs

and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.

  Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as

conspicuously to label him for all time to come. To be short, then,

a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There you have him.

However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded

meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a

fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is

still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have

noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but

a vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the

tail, though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a

horizontal position.

  By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude

from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto

identified with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on

the other hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively

regarded as alien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting and horizontal

tailed fish must be included in this ground-plan of cetology. Now,

then, come the grand divisions of the entire whale host.

  *I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled

Lamatins and Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of

Nantucket) are included by many naturalists among the whales. But as

these pig-fish are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the

mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do

not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and have presented them

with their passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology.

  First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary

BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them

all, both small and large.

  I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE.

  As the type of the FOLIO I present the Sperm Whale; of the OCTAVO,

the Grampus; of the DUODECIMO, the Porpoise.

  FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:- I. The

Sperm Whale; II. the Right Whale; III. the Fin Back Whale; IV. the

Humpbacked Whale; V. the Razor Back Whale; VI. the Sulphur Bottom

Whale.

  BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER I. (Sperm Whale).- This whale, among the

English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale and the Physeter

whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the

French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the

Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe;

the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in

aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being the

only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is

obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be

enlarged upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do.

Philologically considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when

the sperm whale was almost wholly unknown in his own proper

individuality, and when his oil was only accidentally obtained from

the stranded fish; in those days spermaceti, it would seem, was

popularly supposed to be derived from a creature identical with the

one then known in England as the Greenland or Right Whale. It was

the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor

of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word

literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was

exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an

ointment and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as

you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the

course of time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its

original name was still retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance

its value by a notion so strangely significant of its scarcity. And so

the appellation must at last have come to be bestowed upon the whale

from which this spermaceti was really derived.

  BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER II. (Right Whale).- In one respect this

is the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly

hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or

baleen; and the oil specially known as "whale oil," an inferior

article in commerce. Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately

designated by all the following titles: The Whale; the Greenland

Whale; the Black Whale; the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right

Whale. There is a deal of obscurity concerning the Identity of the

species thus multitudinously baptized. What then is the whale, which I

include in the second species of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus

of the English naturalists; the Greenland Whale of the English

whaleman; the Baliene Ordinaire of the French whalemen; the

Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whale which for more than

two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch and English in the

Arctic seas; it is the whale which the American fishermen have long

pursued in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor' West

Coast, and various other parts of the world, designated by them

Right Whale Cruising Grounds.

  Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of

the English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely

agree in all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented

a single determinate fact upon which to ground a radical

distinction. It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most

inconclusive differences, that some departments of natural history

become so repellingly intricate. The right whale will be elsewhere

treated of at some length, with reference to elucidating the sperm

whale.

  BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER III. (Fin-Back).- Under this head I

reckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back,

Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is

commonly the whale whose distant jet is so often descried by

passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In

the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the

right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter color,

approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-like aspect,

formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large wrinkles. His

grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his name,

is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some three or four feet

long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the back, of an

angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if not the

slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated fin

will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When

the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical

ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the

wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle

surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy

hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back.

The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some men

are man-haters. Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising

to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters; his straight

and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a

barren plain; gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in

swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man; this leviathan

seems the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his

mark that style upon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth,

the Fin-Back is sometimes included with the right whale, among a

theoretic species denominated Whalebone whales, that is, whales with

baleen. Of these so-called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be

several varieties, most of which, however, are little known.

Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched

whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fisherman's

names for a few sorts.

  In connexion with this appellative of "Whalebone whales," it is of

great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be

convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is

in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded

upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding

that those marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted

to afford the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other

detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents.

How then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things

whose peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts

of whales, without any record to what may be the nature of their

structure in other and more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm

whale and the humpbacked whale, each has a hump; but there the

similitude ceases. Then this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland

whale, each of these has baleen; but there again the similitude

ceases. And it is just the same with the other parts above

mentioned. In various sorts of whales, they form such irregular

combinations; or, in the case of any one of them detached, such an

irregular isolation; as utterly to defy all general methodization

formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the

whale-naturalists has split.

  But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of

the whale, in his anatomy- there, at least, we shall be able to hit

the right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in

the Greenland whale's anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we

have seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify

the Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various

leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part

as available to the systematizer as those external ones already

enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the

whales bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them

that way. And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted; and

it is the only one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is

practicable. To proceed.

  BOOK I. (Folio) CHAPTER IV. (Hump Back).- This whale is often seen

on the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there,

and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or

you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the

popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since

the sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not

very valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and

light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white

water generally than any other of them.

  BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. (Razar Back).- Of this whale little is

known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of

a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though

no coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his back,

which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of

him, nor does anybody else.

  BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom).- Another retiring

gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the

Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom

seen; at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern

seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his

countenance. He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks

of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say

nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer.

  Thus ends BOOK I. (Folio), and now begins BOOK II. (Octavo).

  OCTAVOES.* These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among

which present may be numbered:- I., the Grampus; II., the Black

Fish; III., the Narwhale; IV., the Thrasher; V., the Killer.

  *Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very

plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than

those of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate

likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in

its dimensioned form does not preserve the shape of the Folio

volume, but the Octavo volume does.

  BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER I. (Grampus).- Though this fish, whose

loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to

landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not

popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand

distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have

recognised him for one. He is of moderate octave size, varying from

fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions

round the waist. He swims in herds; he is never regularly hunted,

though his oil is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light.

By some fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory of the

advance of the great sperm whale.

  BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER II. (Black Fish).- I give the popular

fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the best.

Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so,

and suggest another. I do so now touching the Black Fish, so called

because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him

the Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known and from

the circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards,

he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale

averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in

almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal

hooked fin in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose.

When not more profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes

capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for

domestic employment- as some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of

company, and quite alone by themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead

of odorous wax. Though their blubber is very thin, some of these

whales will yield you upwards of thirty gallons of oil.

  BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER III. (Narwhale), that is, Nostril whale.-

Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose from

his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The

creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages

five feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet.

Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out

from the jaw in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But

it is only found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving

its owner something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed

man. What precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would

be hard to say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the

sword-fish and bill-fish; though some sailors tell me that the

Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea

for food. Charley Coffin said it was used for an ice-piercer; for

the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it

sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so breaks through. But

you cannot prove either of these surmises to be correct. My own

opinion is, that however this one-sided horn may really be used by the

Narwhale- however that may be- it would certainly be very convenient

to him for a folder in reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard

called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and the Unicorn whale. He

is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism to be found in almost

every kingdom of animated nature. From certain cloistered old

authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn's horn was in

ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, and as

such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also distilled

to a volatile salts for fainting ladies the same way that the horns of

the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it was in

itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells me

that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when Queen

Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window of

Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; "when Sir

Martin returned from that voyage," saith Black Letter, "on bended

knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the

Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle at

Windsor." An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on

bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn,

pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature.

  The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a

milk-white ground color, dotted with round and oblong spots of

black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little

of it, and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the

circumpolar seas.

  BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer).- Of this whale little is

precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the

professed naturalists. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I

should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very

savage- a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio

whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute

is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what

sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon

this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all

killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.

  BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER V. (Thrasher).- This gentleman is

famous for his tail which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his

foes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works

his passage by flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the

world by a similar process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than

of the Killer. Both are outlaws, even in the lawless seas.

  Thus ends BOOK II. (Octavo), and begins BOOK III, (Duodecimo.)

  DUODECIMOES.- These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza

Porpoise. II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise.

  To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may

possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five

feet should be marshalled among WHALES- a word, which, in the

popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures

set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of

my definition of what a whale is- i.e. a spouting fish, with a

horizontal tail.

  BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER 1. (Huzza Porpoise).- This is the

common porpoise found all over the globe. The name is of my own

bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something

must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always

swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing

themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their

appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of

fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to

windward. They are the lads that always live before the wind. They are

accounted a lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers

at beholding these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit

of godly gamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise

will yield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and

delicate fluid extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It

is in request among jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put in on their

hones. Porpoise meat is good eating, you know. It may never have

occurred to you that a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so

small that it is not very readily discernible. But the next time you

have a chance, watch him; and you will then see the great Sperm

whale himself in miniature.

  BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER II. (Algerine Porpoise).- A pirate.

Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat

larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make.

Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him

many times, but never yet saw him captured.

  BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER III. (Mealy-mouthed Porpoise).- The

largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far as

it is known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been

designated, is that of the fisher- Right-Whale Porpoise, from the

circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio.

In shape, he differs in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being

of a less rotund and jolly girth; indeed, he is of quite a neat and

gentleman-like figure. He has no fins on his back (most other

porpoises have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indian eyes

of a hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils him. Though his entire back

down to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet a boundary line,

distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called the "bright waist," that

line streaks him from stem to stern, with two separate colors, black

above and white below. The white comprises part of his head, and the

whole of his mouth, which makes him look as if he had just escaped

from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. A most mean and mealy aspect!

His oil is much like that of the common porpoise.

  Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as

the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the

Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive,

half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by

reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their

fore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable

to future investigators, who may complete what I have here but

begun. If any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and

marked, then he can readily be incorporated into this System,

according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:- The

Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the

Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale; the

Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale;

the Blue Whale; &c. From Icelandic, Dutch, and old English

authorities, there might be quoted other lists of uncertain whales,

blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit them as

altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for mere

sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing.

  Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not

be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I

have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus

unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with

the cranes still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For

small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones,

true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from

ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught- nay, but

the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!