- description
- # CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?
## Overview
This chapter is from the novel *Moby-Dick; or, The Whale*, titled "CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?". It was extracted from the text file "[moby_dick.txt](arke:01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6)" and is part of the "[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)" collection. The chapter spans lines 17682 to 17736.
## Context
This chapter follows "[CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale.](arke:01KG8AMATAM2NSJ8EXKXVZHA5M)" and precedes "[CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg.](arke:01KG8AMATKT365D6MYKBMPFY1W)". The novel *Moby-Dick* is contained within the larger collection of Melville's complete works.
## Contents
The chapter explores the question of whether whales have diminished in size over time. The author argues against the idea, citing evidence from fossil records and accounts from naturalists like Pliny and Lacépède, who described whales of enormous sizes. The author contrasts these accounts with the size of modern whales, suggesting that the whales of today are as large as those in Pliny's time. The chapter concludes with the author's skepticism regarding the claim that whales have degenerated, drawing parallels to the unchanging size of Egyptian mummies and cattle.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:51:13.261Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?
- end_line
- 17736
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:29.272Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 17682
- text
- CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?
Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from
the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether,
in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the
original bulk of his sires.
But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the
present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are
found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period
prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those
belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier
ones.
Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the
Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than
seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen,
that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a
large sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen’s authority,
that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the
time of capture.
But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an
advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may
it not be, that since Adam’s time they have degenerated?
Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of
such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For
Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and
Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in length—Rope
Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and
Solander, Cooke’s naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy
of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or
Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three
hundred and sixty feet. And Lacépède, the French naturalist, in his
elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page
3), sets down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and
twenty-eight feet. And this work was published so late as A.D. 1825.
But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is
as big as his ancestors in Pliny’s time. And if ever I go where Pliny
is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so.
Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies
that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not
measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks;
and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest
Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they
are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize
cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the
fattest of Pharaoh’s fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not
admit that of all animals the whale alone should have degenerated.
But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more
recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient
look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even
- title
- CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?