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1Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly
2inquired, whether, in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the original bulk of his sires.
3But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the present day superior in magnitude to those whose
4fossil remains are found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period prior to man), but of the whales
5found in that Tertiary system, those belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier ones. Of all
6the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was
7less than seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen, that the tape-measure gives seventy-two
8feet for the skeleton of a large sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that Sperm Whales have
9been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of capture. But may it not be, that while the whales of the present
10hour are an advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may it not be, that since Adam's time
11they have degenerated? Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of such gentlemen as Pliny, and
12the ancient naturalists generally. For Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and Aldrovandus of
13others which measured eight hundred feet in length--Rope Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of
14Banks and Solander, Cooke's naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy of Sciences setting down certain Iceland
15Whales (reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three hundred and sixty feet. And
16Lacépède, the French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page 3), sets
17down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. And this work was published so late as
18A.D. 1825. But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is as big as his ancestors in Pliny's
19time. 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
20understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do
21not measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks; and while the cattle and other animals
22sculptured on the oldest Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they are drawn, just as
23plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the
24fattest of Pharaoh's fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not admit that of all animals the whale alone should have
25degenerated. But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to
26the almost omniscient look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even through Behring's straits,
27and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all
28continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc;
29whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe,
30and then himself evaporate in the final puff. Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo,
31which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron
32manes and scowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous river-capitals, where now the polite
33broker sells you land at a dollar an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show
34that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction. But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so
35short a period ago--not a good lifetime--the census of the buffalo in Illinois exceeded the census of men now in London,
36and though at the present day not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the cause of this
37wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so
38inglorious an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for forty-eight months think they
39have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days of the
40old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a
41wilderness and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of months, mounted on horse instead of
42sailing in ships, would have slain not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need were, could be
43statistically stated. Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the gradual extinction of the Sperm
44Whale, for example, that in former years (the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in small pods,
45were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also
46much more remunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, influenced by some views to safety, now
47swim the seas in immense caravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and pods, and schools of
48other days are now aggregated into vast but widely separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally fallacious
49seems the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding
50with them, hence that species also is declining. For they are only being driven from promontory to cape; and if one
51coast is no longer enlivened with their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very recently
52startled by the unfamiliar spectacle. Furthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two firm
53fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their
54valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas and glades of the middle seas,
55the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and
56walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in a charmed circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all
57pursuit from man. But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one cachalot, some philosophers of
58the forecastle have concluded that this positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions. But
59though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than 13,000, have been annually slain on the nor' west
60coast by the Americans alone; yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance of little or no account
61as an opposing argument in this matter. Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness of the
62more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one
63hunting the King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the
64temperate climes. And there seems no reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted for thousands
65of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the successive monarchs of the East--if they still survive
66there in great numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since he has a pasture to expatiate in, which
67is precisely twice as large as all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles of the sea
68combined. Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity of whales, their probably attaining the
69age of a century and more, therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations must be contemporary.
70And what that is, we may soon gain some idea of, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of
71creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children who were alive seventy-five years ago; and
72adding this countless host to the present human population of the globe. Wherefore, for all these things, we account the
73whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas before the continents broke
74water; he once swam over the site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah's flood he despised
75Noah's Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal
76whale will still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood, spout his frothed defiance to the
77skies.
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