Moby Dick

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Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton.
From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the
altitude of the final rib, "How now!" they shouted; "Dar'st thou measure
this our god! That's for us." "Aye, priests--well, how long do ye make
him, then?" But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning
feet and inches; they cracked each other's sconces with their
yard-sticks--the great skull echoed--and seizing that lucky chance, I
quickly concluded my own admeasurements.

These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be
it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied
measurement I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can
refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell
me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where
they have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, I
have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have
what the proprietors call "the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or