📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 65
1That for six thousand years--and no one knows how many millions of ages before--the great whales should have been
2spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or
3mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the
4whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings--that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute
5(fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. 1851), it should still
6remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapor--this is surely a
7noteworthy thing. Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items contingent. Every one knows that
8by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with
9the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the
10surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can
11only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for his periodical visits to
12the upper world. But he cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm Whale's
13mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface; and what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his
14mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head. If I say, that in any creature
15breathing is only a function indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a certain element, which
16being subsequently brought into contact with the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I
17shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood
18in a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable
19time. That is to say, he would then live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the case with
20the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single
21breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has no gills. How is this? Between his
22ribs and on each side of his spine he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicelli-like
23vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour
24or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel crossing the
25waterless desert carries a surplus supply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs. The anatomical
26fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more
27cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in having his spoutings out, as the
28fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there
29for a period of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets
30seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy
31breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be
32always dodging up again to make good his regular allowance of air. And not till those seventy breaths are told, will he
33finally go down to stay out his full term below. Remark, however, that in different individuals these rates are
34different; but in any one they are alike. Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it
35be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious is it, too, that this necessity for the
36whale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. For not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be
37caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great
38necessities that strike the victory to thee! In man, breathing is incessantly going on--one breath only serving for two
39or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he
40will. But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time. It has been said that the whale only
41breathes through his spout-hole; if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water, then I opine we
42should be furnished with the reason why his sense of smell seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that
43at all answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so clogged with two elements, it could not be
44expected to have the power of smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout--whether it be water or whether it be
45vapor--no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has
46no proper olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets, no Cologne-water in the sea. Furthermore, as
47his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting canal, and as that long canal--like the grand Erie Canal--is
48furnished with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of air or the upward exclusion of water,
49therefore the whale has no voice; unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through
50his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to
51this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh! happy that the world is such an
52excellent listener! Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is for the conveyance of air, and
53for several feet laid along, horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little to one side; this
54curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down in a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether
55this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words, whether the spout of the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor of the
56exhaled breath, or whether that exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and discharged through the
57spiracle. It is certain that the mouth indirectly communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that
58this is for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle. Because the greatest necessity for so doing would
59seem to be, when in feeding he accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath the surface, and
60there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will
61find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of
62respiration. But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! You have seen him spout; then declare
63what the spout is; can you not tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain
64things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in
65it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.
🎉 全部完成！共 65 行