Here we have two enormous whale heads sitting right beside each other.
Let’s stand between them and compare what we see.
Among all the huge whale species, sperm whales and right whales stand out above everything else.
These are the only two kinds men regularly go out to hunt.
For whalers from Nantucket, they represent two opposite ends of the whale‑world spectrum.
Most of their big physical differences show up in their heads.
Right now one of each hangs off the sides of the Pequod.
We only need to walk across the deck to go from one head to the other.
Where else could you ask for a better chance to study whales up close in real life?
First off, you immediately notice how different these two heads look.
Both are unbelievably massive.
But the sperm whale’s head has clean, balanced proportions that the right whale’s head completely lacks.
The sperm whale’s face carries far more character.
Standing before it, you can’t help but feel its quiet, powerful dignity.
This one’s dignity is even more noticeable because the very top of its head is flecked grey and white.
That patchy colour tells us it is old, a whale that has lived through many years out at sea.
Whalers call this sort an old “grey‑headed whale.”
Now let’s look at the features both heads share.
We will start with the two most important sense organs: eyes and ears.
If you peer very carefully, far back and low on either head, near the corner of the jaw, you can finally spot each eye.
No eyelashes grow around them. They look like the eye of a young horse.
They are shockingly tiny next to the sheer size of these giant heads.
Because whale eyes sit so far out on the sides of their heads, a whale cannot see anything directly in front of its face.
It also cannot see anything straight behind it.
To put it simply, whale eyes sit where human ears are placed.
Try to imagine seeing the world only through where your ears are.
You would only pick up about thirty degrees of view forward from your side, and another thirty degrees backward.
If your worst enemy walked straight toward you in broad daylight, holding a raised knife, you would never see him coming.
You would miss threats sneaking up from directly behind you just as badly.
In a way, a whale has two backs. At the same time it has two partial fronts, one on each side.
After all, what makes something a front for any creature, if not its eyes?
Most animals we know have eyes set so their vision merges together.
Their brains receive one single combined picture, not two separate images.
A whale’s eyes are split apart by tonnes of solid skull tissue.
That huge bone mass rises between them like a tall mountain standing between two lakes.
Each eye sends its own completely separate signal to the brain.
That means a whale sees one view from its left side, and a totally different view from its right.
Everything dead‑ahead falls into total, featureless darkness.
Humans look out at the world from a small guard booth with one window made of two connected panes.
For a whale, those panes sit far apart, two unconnected windows. The view suffers badly for it.
Anyone reading this, and every whaler out on the ocean, needs to keep this odd fact firmly in mind. It will matter in scenes we get to later.
This strange way of seeing brings up a fascinating, tricky question. I will only touch on it briefly.
When human eyes are open in the light, seeing happens automatically. You cannot help noticing whatever sits in front of you.
Even so, you cannot carefully study two separate things at exactly the same time.
They can sit right next to each other, touching, big or small‑‑your full attention can only focus on one.
If each object sat surrounded by total darkness, to focus your mind on one, the other vanishes entirely from your awareness.
So what happens inside a whale?
Its two eyes work at the same time, of course.
But is its brain powerful enough to pay close attention to two completely different scenes at once, one off each shoulder, pointing opposite directions?
If a whale really can do that, it would be as amazing as a human solving two separate advanced math proofs simultaneously.
That comparison is not really as far‑fetched as it sounds.
This might just be my own wild thought, but I keep thinking about how whales act when several whaling boats close in.
They twist and dart unpredictably. They get spooked over nothing, easily thrown into panic.
I suspect all that confused behaviour comes from their split vision. Their brain struggles to make sense of two totally separate pictures coming in from opposite sides.
A whale’s ear is just as strange as its eye.
If you had never seen one before, you could search these giant heads for hours and never find the opening.
There is no outer ear flap at all. The hole itself is so tiny you could barely fit a feather quill inside it.
It sits just a little way behind each eye.
One key difference sets sperm whales and right whales apart here.
Sperm whales have an actual open hole for each ear.
A right whale’s ear opening is fully sealed over by a thin membrane. From the outside you cannot spot it at all.
Is it not strange?
A creature so enormous views the world through tiny eyes, and hears ocean thunder through ears smaller than a hare’s.
Even if its eyes were as wide as the lens from a huge telescope, and its ears as big as cathedral doorways, that would not give it sharper sight or better hearing. Not one bit.
So why do people keep trying only to make their minds bigger? We ought to make them sharper and more precise.
Now imagine we use every lever and block‑and‑tackle we have aboard ship. We tip the sperm whale’s heavy head upside down.
We climb a ladder up to its top and peer straight down into its mouth.
If its body were still attached, we could carry a lantern and wander deep down into its throat, like exploring a huge underground cave.
Let us hold onto one of its teeth and look around inside this mouth.
The inside is surprisingly clean and beautiful.
From bottom to top the walls are covered in shiny white membrane, smooth and glossy like satin fabric for a wedding dress.
Climb back out. Look at that massive lower jaw.
It resembles the long, narrow lid of a giant snuff box, hinged at one end instead of along the side.
Pry it upward so it hangs over you, showing all its sharp teeth. It looks like a terrifying spiked gate.
Many whalers have met a brutal end when those heavy teeth slammed down and impaled them.
It is even more frightening when you spot a whale deep underwater hanging motionless.
Its fifteen‑foot lower jaw dangles straight down, at a right‑angle to its body, exactly like the long bowsprit on a sailing ship.
That whale is not dead. It is only sad, listless, in some strange low mood.
Its jaw hinges have gone loose. It hangs there in that awkward position, a humiliating sight for other whales. You can almost picture the rest of its kind wishing its jaw would lock shut.
Skilled whalers can unhinge this lower jaw without too much trouble.
They hoist it up onto the deck to pull out the hard ivory teeth.
That dense white whale bone gets carved into all kinds of goods: walking sticks, umbrella shafts, whip handles.
Hauling that heavy jaw aboard is slow hard labour, like dragging an anchor up from the seabed.
A few days after the main whale‑cutting work wraps up, Queequeg, Daggoo and Tashtego step in. All three are experts at pulling whale teeth.
Queequeg slices open the gum tissue with a sharp spade.
They lash the whole jaw tight down to heavy metal rings bolted into the deck. Ropes and pulleys run down from above.
Then they yank each tooth free, much like farm oxen pulling old oak stumps out of rough woodland ground.
A full grown sperm whale usually has forty‑two teeth.
In elderly whales the teeth wear flat, but they never rot. Whales do not get fillings the way humans do.
Later workmen saw the jaw bone into flat planks and stack them up, just like wooden beams for building a house.