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CHAPTER 85 . The Fountain . That for six thousand years — and no one knows how many millions of ages before — the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea , and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep , as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots ; and that for some centuries back , thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale , watching these sprinklings and spoutings — that all this should be , and yet , that down to this blessed minute ( fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o’clock P . M . of this sixteenth day of December , A . D . 1851 ) , it should still remain a problem , whether these spoutings are , after all , really water , or nothing but vapor — this is surely a noteworthy thing . Let us , then , look at this matter , along with some interesting items contingent . Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills , the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the element in which they swim ; hence , a herring or a cod might live a century , and never once raise its head above the surface . But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs , like a human being’s , the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere . Wherefore the necessity for his periodical visits to the upper world . But he cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth , for , in his ordinary attitude , the Sperm Whale’s mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface ; and what is still more , his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth . No , he breathes through his spiracle alone ; and this is on the top of his head . If I say , that in any creature breathing is only a function indispensable to vitality , inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a certain element , which being subsequently brought into contact with the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle , I do not think I shall err ; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words . Assume it , and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be aerated with one breath , he might then seal up his nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time . That is to say , he would then live without breathing . Anomalous as it may seem , this is precisely the case with the whale , who systematically lives , by intervals , his full hour and more ( when at the bottom ) without drawing a single breath , or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air ; for , remember , he has no gills . 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 .
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