74. CHAPTER LXXIV.
THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD—CONTRASTED VIEW.
Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together;
let us join them, and lay together our own.
Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and
the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the
only whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer,
they present the two extremes of all the known varieties of the
whale. As the external difference between them is mainly
observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this moment
hanging from the Pequod's side; and as we may freely go from
one to the other, by merely stepping across the deck:—where,
I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance to study
practical cetology than here?
In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast
between these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience;
but there is a certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm
Whale's which the Right Whale's sadly lacks. There is more
character in the Sperm Whale's head. As you behold it, you
involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point
of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity
is heightened by the pepper and salt color of his head at the
summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience.
In short, he is what the fishermen technically call a “grey-headed
whale.”
Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads—
namely, the two most important organs, the eye and the ear.
Far back on the side of the head, and low down, near the angle
of either whale's jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last see
a lashless eye, which you would fancy to be a young colt's eye;
so out of all proportion is it to the magnitude of the head.
Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes,
it is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead,
no more than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position
of the whale's eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears;
and you may fancy, for yourself, how it would fare with you,
did you sideways survey objects through your ears. You would
find that you could only command some thirty degrees of vision
in advance of the straight side-line of sight; and about thirty
more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking straight
towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not
be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you
from behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to
speak; but, at the same time, also, two fronts (side fronts): for
what is it that makes the front of a man—what, indeed, but his
eyes?
Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think
of, the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual
power, so as to produce one picture and not two to the brain;
the peculiar position of the whale's eyes, effectually divided as
they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which towers between
them like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys; this,
of course, must wholly separate the impressions which each
independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore, must see
one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct picture on
that side; while all between must be profound darkness and
nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on
the world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his
window. But with the whale, these two sashes are separately
inserted, making two distinct windows, but sadly impairing the
view. This peculiarity of the whale's eyes is a thing always to
be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be remembered by the
reader in some subsequent scenes.
A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning
this visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I
must be content with a hint. So long as a man's eyes are open
in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot
then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him.
Nevertheless, any one's experience will teach him, that though he
can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance,
it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to
examine any two things—however large or however small—at
one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side
by side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate
these two objects, and surround each by a circle of profound
darkness; then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner
as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly
excluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it,
then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must
simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehensive,
combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same
moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one
on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction?
If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if
a man were able simultaneously to go through the demonstrations
of two distinct problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated,
is there any incongruity in this comparison.
It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me,
that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by
some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity
and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think
that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of
volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite
powers of vision must involve them.
But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you
are an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these
two heads for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear
has no external leaf whatever; and into the hole itself you
can hardly insert a quill, so wondrously minute is it. It is
lodged a little behind the eye. With respect to their ears, this
important difference is to be observed between the sperm whale
and the right. While the ear of the former has an external
opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over
with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without.
Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should
see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder
through an ear which is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes
were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his
ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make
him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all.—
Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind? Subtilize it.
Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have
at hand, cant over the sperm whale's head, so that it may lie
bottom up; then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a
peep down the mouth; and were it not that the body is now
completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend
into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But
let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we
are. What a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from
floor to ceiling, lined, or rather papered with a glistening white
membrane, glossy as bridal satins.
But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw,
which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box,
with the hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it
up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it
seems a terrific portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a
poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling
force. But far more terrible is it to behold, when
fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating
there suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long,
hanging straight down at right-angles with his body, for all the
world like a ship's jib-boom. This whale is not dead; he is
only dispirited; out of sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so
supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving him
there in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproach to all his tribe,
who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon him.
In most cases this lower jaw—being easily unhinged by a
practised artist—is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose
of extracting the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of
that hard white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion
all sorts of curious articles, including canes, umbrella-stocks,
and handles to riding-whips.
With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it
were an anchor; and when the proper time comes—some few
days after the other work—Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego,
being all accomplished dentists, are set to drawing teeth. With
a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances the gums; then the jaw
is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being rigged from
aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag stumps
of old oaks out of wild wood-lands. There are generally forty-two
teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed;
nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards
sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists for building
houses.
