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CHAPTER 68 . The Blanket . I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject , the skin of the whale . I have had controversies about it with experienced whalemen afloat , and learned naturalists ashore . My original opinion remains unchanged ; but it is only an opinion . The question is , what and where is the skin of the whale ? Already you know what his blubber is . That blubber is something of the consistence of firm , close - grained beef , but tougher , more elastic and compact , and ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness . Now , however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature’s skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness , yet in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption ; because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale’s body but that same blubber ; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal , if reasonably dense , what can that be but the skin ? True , from the unmarred dead body of the whale , you may scrape off with your hand an infinitely thin , transparent substance , somewhat resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass , only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin ; that is , previous to being dried , when it not only contracts and thickens , but becomes rather hard and brittle . I have several such dried bits , which I use for marks in my whale - books . It is transparent , as I said before ; and being laid upon the printed page , I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence . At any rate , it is pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles , as you may say . But what I am driving at here is this . That same infinitely thin , isinglass substance , which , I admit , invests the entire body of the whale , is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature , as the skin of the skin , so to speak ; for it were simply ridiculous to say , that the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a new - born child . But no more of this . Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale ; then , when this skin , as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale , will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil ; and , when it is considered that , in quantity , or rather weight , that oil , in its expressed state , is only three fourths , and not the entire substance of the coat ; some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass , a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that . Reckoning ten barrels to the ton , you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters of the stuff of the whale’s skin .
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