THE WHITE WHALE 313 
great Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous 
great tierce is mystically carved in front, so the whale’s vast plaited 
forehead forms innumerable strange devices for the emblematical 
adornment of his wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Hiedelhurgh 
was always replenished with the most excellent of the wines of the 
Rhenish valleys, so the tun of the whale contains by far the most 
precious of all his oily vintages ; namely, the highly prized spermaceti, 
in its absolutely pure, limpid, and odoriferous state. Nor is this 
precious substance found unalloyed in any other part of the creature. 
Though in life it remains perfectly fluid, yet, upon exposure to the 
air, after death, it soon begins to concrete; sending forth beautiful 
crystalline shoots, as when the first thin delicate ice is just forming 
in water. A large whale’s case generally yields about five hundred 
gallons of sperm, though from unavoidable circumstances, considerable 
of it is spilled, leaks, and dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably 
lost in the ticklish business of securing what you can. 
I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh 
Tun was coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could 
not possibly have compared with the silken pearl coloured membrane, 
like the lining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the 
Sperm Whale’s case. 
It will have been seen that the Heidelhurg Tun of the Sperm 
Whale embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; 
and since — as has been elsewhere set forth — the head embraces one- 
third of the whole length of the creature, then setting that length 
down at eighty feet for a good-sized whale, you have more than twenty- 
six feet for the depth of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and 
down against a ship’s side. 
As in decapitating the whale, the operator’s instrument is brought 
close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the 
spermaceti magazine; he has therefore to he uncommonly heedful, 
lest a careless, untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wast- 
ingly let out its invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of 
the head, also, which is at last elevated out of the water, and retained 
in that position by the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen com- 
binations on one side make quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter. 
