CHAPTER 80

  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 in 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 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 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-relieve, 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 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.