344 
MOBY DICK; OR 
when unmolested* there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods 
of his jets and the ordinary periods of respiration. 
But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject ? Speak 
out! You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can 
you not tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not 
so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain 
things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you 
might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is 
precisely. 
The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist en- 
veloping it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls 
from it, when, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get 
a close view of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water 
cascading all around him. And if at such time you should think that 
you really perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know 
that they are not merely condensed from its vapour; or how do you 
know that they are not those identical drops superficially lodged in 
the spout-hole fissure, which is counter-sunk into the summit of the 
whale’s head? For even when tranquilly swimming through the mid- 
day sea in a calm, with his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary’s 
in the desert; even then, the whale always carries a small basin of 
water on his head, as under a blazing sun you will sometimes see a 
cavity in a rock filled up with rain. 
Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to he over-curious touching 
the precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be 
peering into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with 
your pitcher to this fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even 
when coming into slight contact with the outer, vapoury shreds 
of the jet, which will often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, 
from the acridness of the thing so touching it. And I know one, who 
coming into still closer contact with the spout, whether- with some 
scientific object in view, or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled 
off from his cheek and arm. Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout 
is deemed poisonous; they try to evade it. Another thing; I have 
heard it said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the jet is fairly 
