Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important
thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum
through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a
man's character will be found betokened in his backbone.
I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are.
A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.
I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag
which I fling half out to the world.
Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial
cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra
the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being eight
in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards.
As it passes through the remaining vertebrae the canal tapers in size,
but for a considerable distance remains of large capacity.
Now, of course, this canal is filled with much the same strangely
fibrous substance--the spinal cord--as the brain; and directly
communicates with the brain. And what is still more, for many feet
after emerging from the brain's cavity, the spinal cord remains
of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain.
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