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Interesting that their evidence --a stone arrowhead found in a whale-- is actually also described in Moby Dick itself: --- It so chanced that almost upon firs
by zipfle 13y ago
Interesting that their evidence --a stone arrowhead found in a whale-- is actually also described in Moby Dick itself:
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It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into [a whale, not Moby Dick] with the spade, the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured whales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence of any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have been some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron, the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And when? It might have been darted by some Nor' West Indian long before America was discovered.
gutenberg.org full text:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm
- huxley 13y agoMoby Dick is so encyclopedic and digressive that I'm not surprised that any given random fact about whales might appear in it.
- maw 13y agoIndeed, and this is my favorite random fact about whales in Moby Dick: "Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me."
- huxley 13y agoHaha ... true enough, though Ishmael is well established as an unreliable narrator. Here's my favourite fact: the white whale Moby Dick is based on a real-life white whale named Mocha Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mocha_Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mocha_Dick
- anigbrowl 13y agoDid not know that. I echo your advice to people to give the book another go if they haven't finished it. It is so worth it.
- fennecfoxen 13y agoI prefer Ishmael's method for finding water in the middle-of-nowhere American prairies (to wit: select a philosophy professor from your caravan and tell him to just wander around lost in thought for a few hours.) ... Ishmael is a nut. :b
- officemonkey 13y agoA good translation of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" has the same issue. Verne shoehorns pretty much every interesting fact about the ocean into it. Both books are among my favorites, pretty much because of their dedication to the "medium."