CHAPTER 76

  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

Indian-men 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 envelope; 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 befell the weakling youth

lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais?