Chapter LXXVI: 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 Indiamen 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 crowbars. 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 envelop;
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 befel the weakling youth lifting the
dread goddess's veil at Sais?