THE WHITE WHALE 
CHAPTER LXVII 
281 
THE BLANKET 
I have given no small attention to that not nnvexed subject, the skin 
of the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced 
whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion 
remains unchanged ; hut it is only an opinion. 
The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale ? Already 
you know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the 
consistence of firm, close-grained beef, hut tougher, more elastic and 
compact, and ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in 
thickness. 
Now, however preposterous it may first seem to talk of any creature’s 
skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point 
of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because 
you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale’s 
body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of 
any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that he but the skin ? True, 
from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with 
your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat resem- 
bling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and 
soft as satin ; that is, previous to being dried, when it not only contracts 
and thickens, hut becomes rather hard and brittle. I have several 
such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whalebooks. It is trans- 
parent, as I said before ; and being laid upon the printed page, I have 
sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying in- 
fluence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through their 
own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at here is this. 
That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests 
the entire body of the whale, is not so much to he regarded as the skin of 
the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply 
ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of the tremendous whale is 
thinner and more tender than the skin of the new-born child. But no 
more of this. 
Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this 
skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the hulk of 
