Moby Dick

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look at. He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow!"
  --COOPER'S PILOT.

  "The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that
whales had been introduced on the stage there."
  --ECKERMANN'S CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE.

  "My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?" I answered, "we have been
stove by a whale."
  --"NARRATIVE OF THE SHIPWRECK OF THE WHALE SHIP ESSEX OF
NANTUCKET, WHICH WAS ATTACKED AND FINALLY DESTROYED BY
A LARGE SPERM WHALE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN." BY OWEN
CHACE OF NANTUCKET, FIRST MATE OF SAID VESSEL. NEW
YORK, 1821.

    "A mariner sat in the shrouds one night,
      The wind was piping free;
    Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale,
    And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale,
      As it floundered in the sea."
  --ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.

  "The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the
capture of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or
nearly six English miles. ...

  "Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which,
cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four
miles."
  --SCORESBY.

  "Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the
infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous
head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he
rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him
with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.
  ... It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of
the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, so
important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so
entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among
the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late
years, must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient
opportunities of witnessing their habitudes."
  --THOMAS BEALE'S HISTORY OF THE SPERM WHALE, 1839.

  "The Cachalot" (Sperm Whale) "is not only better armed than the True
Whale" (Greenland or Right Whale) "in possessing a formidable weapon
at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a
disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at
once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being
regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of
the whale tribe."
  --FREDERICK DEBELL BENNETT'S WHALING VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE, 1840.

  October 13. "There she blows," was sung out from the mast-head.
  "Where away?" demanded the captain.
  "Three points off the lee bow, sir."
  "Raise up your wheel. Steady!"
  "Steady, sir."
  "Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?"
  "Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she
breaches!"
  "Sing out! sing out every time!"
  "Ay Ay, sir! There she blows! there--there--thar she blows -bowes
-bo-o-os!"
  "How far off?"
  "Two miles and a half."
  "Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands."
  --J. ROSS BROWNE'S ETCHINGS OF A WHALING CRUIZE. 1846.

  "The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the
horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island
of Nantucket."
  --"NARRATIVE OF THE GLOBE," BY LAY AND HUSSEY SURVIVORS.  A.D. 1828.

  Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the
assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at
length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved
by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable."
  --MISSIONARY JOURNAL OF TYERMAN AND BENNETT.

  "Nantucket itself," said Mr. Webster, "is a very striking and
peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of
eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding
largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most
persevering industry."
  --REPORT OF DANIEL WEBSTER'S SPEECH IN THE U. S. SENATE,
ON THE APPLICATION FOR THE ERECTION OF A BREAKWATER AT NANTUCKET. 1828.

  "The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a
moment."
  --"THE WHALE AND HIS CAPTORS, OR THE WHALEMAN'S
ADVENTURES AND THE WHALE'S BIOGRAPHY, GATHERED ON THE
HOMEWARD CRUISE OF THE COMMODORE PREBLE."
BY REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER.

  "If you make the least damn bit of noise," replied Samuel, "I will
send you to hell."
  --LIFE OF SAMUEL COMSTOCK (THE MUTINEER), BY HIS
BROTHER, WILLIAM COMSTOCK. ANOTHER VERSION OF THE
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