BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER I. (_Sperm Whale_).—This whale, among the

English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter

whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the

French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the

Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe;

the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in

aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being the

only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is

obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged

upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically

considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was

almost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil

was only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days

spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a

creature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland

or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was

that quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable

of the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was

exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment

and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you

nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of

time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was

still retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a

notion so strangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation

must at last have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this

spermaceti was really derived.