How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine
he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth
of vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits
the surface, are completely distended with oxygenated blood.
So that for an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea,
he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel
crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus supply
of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs.
The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable;
and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true,
seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise
inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in having his
spoutings out, as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean.
If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will
continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all
his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes,
and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths;
then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy
breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few
breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always
dodging up again to make good his regular allowance of air.
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