CHAPTER 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 withexperienced 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 somethingof the consistence of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher,more elastic and compact, and ranges from eight or ten to twelveand fifteen inches in thickness.
Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature'sskin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in pointof fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because youcannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's bodybut that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal,if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True, from theunmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand aninfinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling the thinnestshreds 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 Isaid before; and being laid upon the printed page, I have sometimespleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence.At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through theirown 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 regardedas the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak; for itwere simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of the tremendouswhale 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 bulkof 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 ideamay hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a merepart 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 weightof only three quarters of the stuff of the whale's skin.
In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least amongthe many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquelycrossed 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 isinglasssubstance 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 farother delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you callthose 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 Whalein particular, I was much struck with a plate representingthe old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphicpalisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like thosemystic 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 Whalepresents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks,effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by reasonof numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect.I should say that those New England rocks on the seacoast,which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scrapingcontact with vast floating icebergs--I should say, that those rocksmust not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular.It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are probablymade by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most remarkedthem in the large, full-grown bulls of the species.
A word or two more concerning this matter of the skinor blubber of the whale. It has already been said, that itis 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 realblanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho sliptover his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of thiscosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keephimself 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 warmthemselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winterwould bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale haslungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he dies. How wonderfulis 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 lipsfor life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard,they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozeninto 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 Borneonegro in summer.
It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strongindividual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rarevirtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and modelthyself 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 thegreat 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!