But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded whale,
accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at all.
For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan,
that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape.
Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra
in the library of one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea
of a burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy's
other leading personal characteristics; yet nothing of this
kind could be inferred from any leviathan's articulated bones.
In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton of the whale
bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal
as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes it.
This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some part
of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously
displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer
to the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has
four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger.
But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering,
as the human fingers in an artificial covering.
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