sis MOBY DICK; OR 
fragrant spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner 
chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end 
can readily be recalled — the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, 
who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceed- 
ing store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he 
died embalmed. How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato’s 
honey head, and sweetly perished there ? 
CHAPTER LXXVIII 
THE PRAIRIE 
To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this 
Leviathan; this is a thing which no physiognomist or phrenologist 
has as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hope- 
ful as for Lavater to have scrutinised the wrinkles on the Rock of 
Gibraltar, or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the 
Dome of the Pantheon. Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater 
not only treats of the various faces of men, but also attentively studies 
the faces of horses, birds, serpents, and fish ; and dwells in detail upon 
the modifications of expression discernible therein. Hor have Gall 
and his disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching 
the phrenological characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore, 
though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of 
these two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavour. I 
try all things; I achieve what I can. 
Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous 
creature. He has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central 
and most conspicuous of the features ; and since it perhaps most mod- 
ifies and finally controls their combined expression; hence it would 
seem that its entire absence, as an external appendage, must very 
largely affect the countenance of the whale. For as in landscape gar- 
dening, a spire, cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed 
almost indispensable to the completion of the scene; so no face can be 
physiognomically in keeping without the elevated open-work belfry of 
