On Thu, 28 Sep 1995 Rose Hiscock <[log in to unmask]> said:
>I am writing copy for a flyer for the up-coming Whales exhibition at the
>Museum of Victoria and am seeking a good quotation on the subject of
>whales. Specifically I am after a quotation that suggests whales'
>intelligence.
>
>So if anyone out there in the wild blue yonder has one at hand, I would
>appreciate hearing from you.
>Rose Hiscock
>Publicity Manager
>Scienceworks
>
Jules Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea:
"You spoke of the cachalot as a small creature. I have heard of gigantic
ones. They are intelligent cetacea. It is said of some that they cover
themselves with seaweed and fucus, and then are taken for islands. People
encamp upon them, and settle there; light a fire"- "And build houses,"
said Conseil.
"Yes, joker," said Ned Land. "And one fine day the creature plunges,
carrying with it all the inhabitants to the bottom of the sea."
"Something like the travels of Sinbad the Sailor," I replied, laughing.
Library of the Future: screen 392.
Herman Melville: Moby Dick.
The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the
same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive
appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by his
vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea,
leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden
gleamings.
Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his
deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural terror, as
that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to specific
accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults. More than
all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught
else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with every apparent
symptom of alarm, he had several times been known to turn round suddenly,
and, bearing down upon them, either stave their boats to splinters, or
drive them back in consternation to their ship.
Library of the Future: screen 336.
Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the
sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct- say, rather, secret
intelligence from the Deity- mostly swim in veins, as they are called;
continuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating
exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with one
tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the direction
taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor's parallel, and though the
line of advance be strictly confined to its own unavoidable, straight wake,
yet the arbitrary vein in which at these times he is said to swim,
generally embraces some few miles in width (more or less, as the vein is
presumed to expand or contract); but never exceeds the visual sweep from
the whale-ship's mast-heads, when circumspectly gliding along this magic
zone. The sum is, that at particular seasons within that breadth and along
that path, migrating whales may with great confidence be looked for.
Library of the Future: screen 365.
A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this
visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a hint.
So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is
involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever
objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one's experience will teach him,
that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one
glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to
examine any two things- however large or however small- at one and the same
instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side and touch each other.
But if you now come to separate these two objects, and surround each by a
circle of profound darkness; then, in order to see one of them, in such a
manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly
excluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it, then, with the
whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is
his brain so much more comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's,
that he can at the same moment of time attentively examine two distinct
prospects, one on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite
direction? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man
were able simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct
problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in
this comparison.
Library of the Future: screen 590.
If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his
brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square.
Library of the Future: screen 618. (Ch. 80)
... I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the Sperm Whale
has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one formed by the
cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange folds, courses, and
convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more in keeping with the
idea of his general might to regard that mystic part of him as the seat of
his intelligence. It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this
Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As
for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any.
The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the
common world.
Library of the Future: screen 619.
--
______________________________________
Robert A. Baron
Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93, Larchmont, NY 10538
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