121 
THE WHITE WHALE 
have to do. Philologically considered, it is absurd. Some centuries 
ago, when the Sperm whale was almost wholly unknown in his own 
proper individuality, and when his oil was only accidentally obtained 
from the stranded fish; in those days spermaceti, it would seem, was 
popularly supposed to be derived from a creature identical with the 
one then known in England as the Greenland or Eight Whale. It was 
the idea also that this same spermaceti was that quickening humour of 
the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word literally ex- 
presses. In those times, also, spermaceti was exceedingly scarce, not 
being used for light, but only as an ointment and medicament. It was 
only to be had from druggists as you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. 
When, as I opine, in the course of time, the true nature of spermaceti 
became known, its original name was still retained by the dealers ; no 
doubt to enhance its value by a notion so strangely significant of its 
scarcity. And so the appellation must at last have come to be bestowed 
upon the whale from which this spermaceti was really derived. 
BOOK I. (. Folio ), Chapter II. ( Right Whale ). — In one respect this 
is the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly 
hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone 
or baleen; and the oil specially known as “whale oil,” an inferior article 
in commerce. Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated 
by all the following titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale; the 
Black Whale; the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Bight Whale. 
There is a deal of obscurity concerning the identity of the species thus 
multitudinously baptized. What then is the whale, which I include 
in the second species of my F olios ? It is the Great Mysticetus of the 
English naturalists; the Greenland Whale of the English whalemen; 
the Baliene Ordinaire of the French whalemen; the Growlands Walfish 
of the Swedes. It is- the whale which for more than two centuries past 
has been hunted by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas ; it is the 
whale which the American fishermen have long pursued in the Indian 
Ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor’-West Coast, and various other 
parts of the world, designated by them Bight Whale Cruising Grounds. 
Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of 
the English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely 
agree in all their grand features; nor ha*s there yet been presented a 
