Moby Dick

and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, to dry.
Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it,
towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes
at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it.
The mincer now stands before you invested in the full canonicals
of his calling.  Immemorial to all his order, this investiture
alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the peculiar
functions of his office.

That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber
for the pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious
wooden horse, planted endwise against the bulwarks,
and with a capacious tub beneath it, into which the minced
pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's desk.
Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit;
intent on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric,
what a lad for a Pope were this mincer!*

* Bible leaves!  Bible leaves!  This is the invariable cry
from the mates to the mincer.  It enjoins him to be careful,
and cut his work into as thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by
so doing the business of boiling out the oil is much accelerated,
and its quantity considerably increased, besides perhaps improving
it in quality.



CHAPTER 96

The Try-Works


Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished
by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the most solid
masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship.
It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were transported
to her planks.

The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast,
the most roomy part of the deck.  The timbers beneath are of a
peculiar strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an almost
solid mass of brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight square,
and five in height.  The foundation does not penetrate the deck,
but the masonry is firmly secured to the surface by ponderous
knees of iron bracing it on all sides, and screwing it down
to the timbers.  On the flanks it is cased with wood, and at top
completely covered by a large, sloping, battened hatchway.
Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in number,
and each of several barrels' capacity.  When not in use,
they are kept remarkably clean.  Sometimes they are polished with
soapstone and sand, till they shine within like silver punchbowls.
During the night-watches some cynical old sailors will
crawl into them and coil themselves away there for a nap.
While employed in polishing them--one man in each pot, side by side--
many confidential communications are carried on, over the iron lips.
It is a place also for profound mathematical meditation.
It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod, with the soapstone
diligently circling round me, that I was first indirectly struck
by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies gliding
along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend
from any point in precisely the same time.

Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works,
the bare masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two
iron mouths of the furnaces, directly underneath the pots.
These mouths are fitted with heavy doors of iron.  The intense heat
of the fire is prevented from communicating itself to the deck,
by means of a shallow reservoir extending under the entire
inclosed surface of the works.  By a tunnel inserted at the rear,
this reservoir is kept replenished with water as fast as it evaporates.
There are no external chimneys; they open direct from the rear wall.
And here let us go back for a moment.

It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's
try-works were first started on this present voyage.
It belonged to Stubb to oversee the business.

"All ready there?  Off hatch, then, and start her.  You cook,
fire the works."  This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been
thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage.
Here be it said that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the
try-works has to be fed for a time with wood.  After that no wood
is used, except as a means of quick ignition to the staple fuel.
In a word, after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber,
now called scraps or fritters, still contains considerable
of its unctuous properties.  These fritters feed the flames.
Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope,
once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body.
Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible
to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must
live in it for the time.  It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor
about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres.
It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument
for the pit.

By midnight the works were in full operation.
We were clear from the carcass; sail had been made;
the wind was freshening; the wild ocean darkness was intense.
But that darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at
intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated