Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Phrenological Delusion of the Head

Phrenologically, the sperm whale’s head in its living, intact state is an entire delusion. No indications of the true brain can be seen or felt from the exterior. Like all mighty things, the whale wears a false brow to the common world, presenting only a deceptive facade to those who attempt to read character through surface features of the skull.

Skull Resemblance to Human Cranium

When the skull is unloaded of its spermy heaps and viewed from behind, the high end strikingly resembles the human skull seen from the same angle. Scaled down to human magnitude, this reversed skull would be involuntarily confused with human skulls. Phrenological examination would note depressions on the summit, indicating no self-esteem and no veneration. These negations, combined with the whale’s prodigious bulk and power, provide the truest conception of what the most exalted potency is.

Vertebrae as Undeveloped Skulls

A German conceit holds that vertebrae are absolutely undeveloped skulls. The curious external resemblance was noted before the Germans by a foreign friend who pointed it out while inlaying the vertebrae of a slain enemy into his canoe’s prow. The spine resembles a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper.

Spinal Cord Phrenology

The phrenologists have omitted an important investigation by not pursuing the spine. Character is betokened in the backbone—better to feel one’s spine than one’s skull. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. In the sperm whale, the cranial cavity connects to the first neck-vertebra, where the spinal canal measures ten inches across with eight inches in height, triangular with base downward. The canal tapers but remains large for considerable distance, filled with the same fibrous substance as the brain and directly communicating with it. The spinal cord remains of undecreasing girth for many feet after emerging from the brain’s cavity, almost equal to the brain’s size.

The Hump as Organ of Firmness

If the spinal theory is applied to the sperm whale’s hump, this august feature rises over one of the larger vertebrae and represents the outer convex mould of it. From its relative situation, the high hump can be called the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the sperm whale.

Indomitableness of the Sperm Whale

The great monster is indomitable, a fact the reader will yet have reason to know. The combination of the whale’s massive frame, hidden intelligence, and spinal power establishes its character as unyielding and undefeatable.

KAPITEL 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin.

This chapter opens with the Pequod encountering the German whaling ship Jungfrau, captained by Derick De Deer of Bremen, as the two vessels meet on the open whaling grounds. The chapter opens with an active whale hunt, where Flask attempts to prick a wounded whale despite Starbuck’s urgent protests, provoking the injured creature’s violent retaliation.

KAPITEL 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin.

This chapter opens with the Pequod encountering the German whaling ship Jungfrau, captained by Derick De Deer of Bremen, as the two vessels meet on the open whaling grounds.

Meeting the German Whaler Jungfrau

The Pequod comes across the German whaler Jungfrau, commanded by Captain Derick De Deer of Bremen, who rows over to the Pequod in a small boat while the two ships are still some distance apart.

Decline of Dutch and German Whaling

Though the Dutch and Germans were once the world’s most prominent whaling peoples, their presence in the Pacific whaling grounds is now rare, with their ships only spotted at very wide, scattered intervals of latitude and longitude.

Derick’s Request for Oil Supplies

Derick explains he has come to borrow oil: his ship is completely out of oil (technically called a “clean” ship in the Fishery, a fitting name for the Jungfrau, or Virgin) and he has no flying-fish to use as a substitute for light at night, so he requests lamp oil and a lamp-feeder from the Pequod’s crew.