Chương Chương 105 · Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?

Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from

the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether,

in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the

original bulk of his sires.

But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the

present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are

found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period

prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those

belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier

ones.

Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the

Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than

seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen,

that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a

large sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen’s authority,

that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the

time of capture.

But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an

advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may

it not be, that since Adam’s time they have degenerated?

Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of

such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For

Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and

Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in length—Rope

Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and

Solander, Cooke’s naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy

of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or

Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three

hundred and sixty feet. And Lacépède, the French naturalist, in his

elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page

3), sets down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and

twenty-eight feet. And this work was published so late as A.D. 1825.

But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is

as big as his ancestors in Pliny’s time. And if ever I go where Pliny

is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so.

Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies

that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not

measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks;

and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest

Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they

are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize

cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the

fattest of Pharaoh’s fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not

admit that of all animals the whale alone should have degenerated.

But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more

recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient

look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even

through Behring’s straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and

lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along

all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long

endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not

at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the

last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final

puff.

Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo,

which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the

prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and

scowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous

river-capitals, where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar

an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem

furnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy

extinction.

But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a

period ago—not a good lifetime—the census of the buffalo in Illinois

exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day

not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the

cause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far

different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious

an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales

for forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank

God, if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the

days of the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West,

when the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness

and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of

months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain

not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need

were, could be statistically stated.

Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the

gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former

years (the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in

small pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in

consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more

remunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales,

influenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense

caravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes,

and pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but

widely separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally

fallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone

whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding with

them, hence that species also is declining. For they are only being

driven from promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened

with their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been

very recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.

Furthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two

firm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain

impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty

Swiss have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas

and glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort

to their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers

and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in a charmed

circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man.

But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one

cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this

positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions.

But though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than

13,000, have been annually slain on the nor’ west coast by the

Americans alone; yet there are considerations which render even this

circumstance of little or no account as an opposing argument in this

matter.

Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness

of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to

Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the

King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are

numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems

no reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted

for thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all

the successive monarchs of the East—if they still survive there in

great numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since

he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as

all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the

Isles of the sea combined.

Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity of

whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more,

therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations

must be contemporary. And what that is, we may soon gain some idea of,

by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of

creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and

children who were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this

countless host to the present human population of the globe.

Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his

species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas

before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the

Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah’s flood he

despised Noah’s Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like

the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will

still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial

flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies.