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1I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin of the whale. I have had controversies about it
2with experienced whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion remains unchanged; but it is only
3an opinion. The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you know what his blubber is. That blubber
4is something of the consistence of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges from
5eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any
6creature's skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point of fact these are no arguments against
7such a presumption; because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but that same
8blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True,
9from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance,
10somewhat resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin; that is, previous
11to being dried, when it not only contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I have several such dried
12bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books. It is transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed
13page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to
14read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at here is this. That same
15infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be
16regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that
17the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a new-born child. But no more of
18this. Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm
19Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or rather
20weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may
21hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of
22liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters of the
23stuff of the whale's skin. In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he
24presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick
25array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the
26isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor
27is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford
28the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the
29walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of
30the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian
31characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic
32rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another
33thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back,
34and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude
35scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast, which
36Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs--I should say, that those
37rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the
38whale are probably made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large, full-grown
39bulls of the species. A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of the whale. It has already been
40said, that it is stript from him in long pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very happy and
41significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an
42Indian poncho slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body, that
43the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would become of a
44Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish
45are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless
46fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller
47in winter would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he
48dies. How wonderful is it then--except after explanation--that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as
49indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those
50Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen
51into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been
52proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo negro in summer. It does seem to
53me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare
54virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice.
55Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the
56great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. But how
57easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how
58few vast as the whale!
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