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MOBY DICK; OR 
single determinate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. 
It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differ- 
ences, that some departments of natural history become so repellingly 
intricate. The right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, 
with reference to elucidating the sperm whale. 
BOOK I. ( Folio ), Chapter III. (Fin-Back ) . — Under this head I 
reckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tail-Spout, 
and Long- John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the 
whale whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the 
Atlantic, in the New York packet tracks. In the length he attains, and 
in his baleen, the Fin-Back resembles the right whale, but is of a less 
portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great lips 
present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds 
of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from 
which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is 
some three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part 
of the back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. 
Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated 
fin will, at times be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When 
the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical ripples, 
and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the wrinkled 
surface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle surrounding it 
somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy hour-lines graved 
on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back. The Fin-Back 
is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters. 
Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in 
the remotest and most sullen waters; his straight and single lofty jet 
rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain ; gifted with 
such wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present 
pursuit from man ; this leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable 
Cain of his race, bearing for his mark, that style upon his back. From 
having the baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is sometimes included 
with the right whale, among a theoretic species denominated Whalebone 
Whales , that is, whales with baleen. Of these so-called Whalebone 
whales, there would seem to be several varieties, most of which, how- 
ever, are little known. Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike- 
