Moby Dick by Herman Melville Chapter 68 Page 4

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