Chapter 79.00: CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun.

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CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun.
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Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must
know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated
upon.

Regarding the Sperm Whale’s head as a solid oblong, you may, on an
inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,* whereof the lower is
the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an
unctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward end forming the
expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the
forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two
almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal
wall of a thick tendinous substance.

*Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical
mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a
solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the
steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both
sides.

The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of
oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand infiltrated
cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole extent. The
upper part, known as the Case, may be regarded as the great Heidelburgh
Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is mystically
carved in front, so the whale’s vast plaited forehead forms innumerable
strange devices for the emblematical adornment of his wondrous tun.
Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished with the most
excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun of the whale
contains by far the most precious of all his oily vintages; namely, the
highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, and odoriferous
state. Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed in any other part of
the creature. Though in life it remains perfectly fluid, yet, upon
exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to concrete; sending
forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when the first thin delicate ice is
just forming in water. A large whale’s case generally yields about five
hundred gallons of sperm, though from unavoidable circumstances,
considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and dribbles away, or is otherwise
irrevocably lost in the ticklish business of securing what you can.

I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh Tun was
coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not possibly
have compared with the silken pearl-coloured membrane, like the lining of
a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm Whale’s case.

It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale
embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; and since—as
has been elsewhere set forth—the head embraces one third of the
whole length of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty feet
for a good sized whale, you have more than twenty-six feet for the depth
of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a ship’s
side.

As in decapitating the whale, the operator’s instrument is brought close
to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti
magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless,
untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its
invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which
is at last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by the
enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one side, make
quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter.

Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous and—in
this particular instance—almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm
Whale’s great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped.