Chapter LXVIII: THE BLANKET
I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin
of the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced
whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion
remains unchanged; but it is only an opinion. The question is, what
and where is the skin of the whale? Already you know what his blubber
is. That blubber is something of the consistence of firm,
close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges
from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. Now,
however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's
skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point
of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you
cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body
but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any
animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True,
from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your
hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling
the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and
soft as satin; that is, previous to being dried, when it not only
contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I have
several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books. It
is transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed
page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a
magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about
whales through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am
driving at here is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass
substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is
not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of
the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the
proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than
the skin of a new-born child. But no more of this. Assuming the
blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the
case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred
barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or
rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three
fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence
be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose
mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten
barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three
quarters of the stuff of the whale's skin. In life, the visible
surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he
presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and
re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something
like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these marks do
not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above mentioned,
but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body
itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant
eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the
ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is,
if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids
hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present
connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm
Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the
old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades
on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too,
the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the
Indian rocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the other
phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not
seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in
great part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous
rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should
say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz
imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact with vast
floating icebergs --I should say, that those rocks must not a little
resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me that
such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact with
other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large, full-grown
bulls of the species. A word or two more concerning this matter of
the skin or blubber of the whale. It has already been said, that it
is stript from him in long pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most
sea-terms, this one is very happy and significant. For the whale is
indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or counterpane;
or, still better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head, and skirting
his extremity. It is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body,
that the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable in all weathers,
in all seas, times, and tides. What would become of a Greenland
whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the north, if unsupplied
with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are found exceedingly brisk
in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it observed, are your
cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators;
creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a
traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man,
the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he
dies. How wonderful is it then --except after explanation --that this
great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is
to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his
lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall
overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards,
perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is
found glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been
proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than
that of a Borneo negro in summer. It does seem to me, that herein we
see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare
virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness.
Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too,
remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being
of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole.
Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain,
O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. But how easy and
how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are
domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!