Moby Dick

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slight contact with the outer, vapoury shreds of the jet, which will
often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of
the thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer
contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view,
or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.
Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to
evade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt
it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you.
The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let
this deadly spout alone.

Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My
hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides
other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations
touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale;
I account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed
fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other