424 MOBY DICK; OR 
CHAPTER CIV 
DOES THE WHALERS MAGNITUDE DIMINISH ? WILL HE PERISH ? 
Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us 
from the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, 
whether, in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated 
from the original bulk of his sires. 
But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the 
present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are 
found in the Tertiary system (embracing distinct geological period 
prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those 
belonging to its latter formation exceed in size those of its earlier ones. 
Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the 
Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than 
seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen, 
that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a 
large-sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen’s author- 
ity, that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long 
at the time of capture. 
But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are 
an advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods : 
may it not he, that since Adam’s time they have degenerated? 
Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts 
of such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. 
For Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living hulk, and 
Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in length — 
Rope Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days 
of Banks and Solander, Cook’s naturalists, we find a Danish member 
of the Academy of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales 
(Reydon-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty 
yards; that is, three hundred and sixty feet. And Lacepede, the 
French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales, in the very 
beginning of his work (page 3), sets down the Right Whale at one 
hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. And this work 
was published so late as A.D. 1825. 
But will any whaleman believe these stories ? Ho. The Whale of 
