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- 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.
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