As no better man advances to take
this matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors.
I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed
to be complete must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.
I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description
of the various species, or--in this space at least--
to much of any description. My object here is simply
to project the draught of a systematization of cetology.
I am the architect, not the builder.
But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the Post-Office
is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea after them;
to have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs,
and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing.
What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan!
The awful tauntings in Job might well appal me. "Will he (the leviathan)
make a covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain!
But I have swam through libraries and sailed through oceans;
I have had to do with whales with these visible hands; I am in earnest;
and I will try. There are some preliminaries to settle.
First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science
of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact,
that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether
a whale be a fish.
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