At the high end the skull
forms a crater to bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor
of this crater--in another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length
and as many in depth reposes the mere handful of this monster's brain.
The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life;
it is hidden away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel
within the amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket
is it secreted in him, that 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.
If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear
view of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck
by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation,
and from the same point of view.
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