บทที่ บทที่ 68 · The Blanket.

I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin

of the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced

whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion

remains unchanged; but it is only an opinion.

The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you

know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence

of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and

ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness.

Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any

creature’s skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet

in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption;

because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the

whale’s body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer

of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin?

True, from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with

your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat

resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as

flexible and soft as satin; that is, previous to being dried, when it

not only contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I

have several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books.

It is transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed

page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a

magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales

through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at

here is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I

admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be

regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to

speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of

the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a

new-born child. But no more of this.

Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin,

as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one

hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity,

or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three

fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence

be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose

mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten

barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three

quarters of the stuff of the whale’s skin.

In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among

the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over

obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in

thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line

engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the

isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as

if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some

instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a

veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations.

These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers

on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to

use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the

hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck

with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the

famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi.

Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains

undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another

thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm

Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially

his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by

reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random

aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast,

which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact

with vast floating icebergs—I should say, that those rocks must not a

little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me

that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact

with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large,

full-grown bulls of the species.

A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of the

whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long

pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very

happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber

as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho

slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of

this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep

himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides.

What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy

seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other

fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but

these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very

bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the

lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn

fire; whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his

blood, and he dies. How wonderful is it then—except after

explanation—that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as

indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at

home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when

seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards,

perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is

found glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been

proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than

that of a Borneo negro in summer.

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong

individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare

virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself

after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too,

live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep

thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and

like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of

thine own.

But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections,

how few are domed like St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few vast as the

whale!