Moby Dick

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"We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The
Jonas-in-the-Whale.... Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that
is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they
can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains....
I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of
herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooneers told me that he caught
once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over." --A VOYAGE TO
GREENLAND, A.D. 1671 HARRIS COLL.

"Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one
eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was
informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of
baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren."
--SIBBALD'S FIFE AND KINROSS.

"Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this
Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was