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_ 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 Lacepede, 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 whaleships, 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. _
Read next: CHAPTER 106 Ahab's Leg.
Read previous: CHAPTER 104 The Fossil Whale.
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