Moby Dick

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hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or
rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths,
and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had
of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere
integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels
to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters
of the stuff of the whale's skin.

In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among
the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely
crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array,
something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these
marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above
mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved
upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick,
observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but
afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical;