Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Whale Spout Composition and Olfaction Uncertainty

The whale’s only nose-equivalent is the spout-hole itself. If the spout mixed water with the expelled breath, the sense of smell would necessarily be clogged and obliterated. However, because it remains uncertain whether the spout is water or vapor, no absolute conclusion can be reached about the whale’s olfactory capabilities. The sperm whale has no proper olfactories, though this poses no problem for a creature needing no roses, violets, or perfume in the sea.

Spouting Canal Anatomy and Whale Vocalization

The whale’s windpipe opens exclusively into the spouting canal—a tube running horizontally just beneath the upper surface of the head, resembling a city gas pipe. This canal features valvular locks that retain air and exclude water. Since the windpipe connects only to this canal rather than to the mouth, the whale possesses no voice, though when it rumbles, one might say it talks through its nose. The author muses that profound beings rarely have much to say to the world unless forced to stammer something for a living.

Challenges to Identifying Whale Spout Composition

Though the mouth indirectly communicates with the spouting canal, this cannot be proven to serve water discharge, since sperm whales feed far beneath the surface where spouting is impossible. When unmolested, the timing of the whale’s jets precisely matches ordinary respiration periods. Yet the spout’s true nature remains elusive: when close enough to observe it, the whale is in prodigious commotion with water cascading all around. The central body of the spout hides within mist, and it proves impossible to tell whether any water falls from it, whether drops are condensed vapor, or whether they come from moisture lodged in the spout-hole fissure—which always holds a small basin of water even when the whale swims calmly in sunshine.

Dangers of Close Whale Spout Contact

Whalemen deem the spout poisonous and avoid it. The outer vapory shreds of the jet cause feverish smarting of the skin, and closer contact can cause skin to peel off entirely. The jet can blind a person if it reaches the eyes. The wisest course for any investigator is to leave this deadly spout alone.

Hypothesis: Whale Spouts Are Pure Vapor

The author’s hypothesis is that the spout is nothing but mist. He is impelled to this conclusion by considerations of the sperm whale’s great inherent dignity and sublimity—the fact that it is never found on soundings or near shores, being both ponderous and profound. Like Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, and Dante, profound beings emit semi-visible steam while thinking deep thoughts. The whale’s vast head becomes overhung by a canopy of vapor from its incommunicable contemplations, and this vapor, glorified by rainbows, bears Heaven’s seal—since rainbows visit only vapor, not clear air. The author ends with gratitude for divine intuitions that enkindle his fog with heavenly rays, acknowledging that all have doubts, many deny, but few have intuitions.

KAPITEL 86. The Tail.

The narrator dedicates this chapter to celebrating the sperm whale’s tail, which he measures as comprising at least fifty square feet on its upper surface alone, expanding into broad flukes that exceed twenty feet across in a full-grown whale. He describes the tail’s remarkable triune structure of tendons—long horizontal fibres in the upper and lower layers with short crosswise fibres in the middle—a design he compares to the alternating stone and tile courses in ancient Roman walls, which imparts immense power to the member. This concentrated might in the tail is further augmented by muscular fibres running from throughout the whale’s bulk that blend into the flukes, making it, as the narrator declares, the thing that could accomplish “annihilation occur to matter.” Despite this overwhelming strength, the tail moves with exceeding grace, and the narrator identifies five distinct motions: propulsion, combat as a mace, the delicate act of sweeping that suggests a sense of touch concentrated in the tail like an elephant’s trunk, the playful lobtailing like a kitten on solitary seas, and the sublime peaking of flukes when the whale plunges, a sight he likens to majestic Satan thrusting forth his claw from Hell. The narrator ultimately admits that however much he dissects the whale, he can only go “skin deep,” knowing not even “the tail of this whale,” much less comprehend how the creature has “no face.”