Moby Dick

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between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a
discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear
in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many
feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without so
much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus
made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts,
and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion
into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he
demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?

When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable
till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale
it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full
grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale's head embraces
nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a
burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as
vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales.