Chapter 78.00: CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.

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CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.
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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 crow-bars. 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 envelope; 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 befell the weakling youth lifting the dread
goddess’s veil at Lais?