1 He is not even by any means the largest of the whales.
2 The largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth more than four.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton. 3 The largest of the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the fish which, in life, is greatest in depth.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton. 4 Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than seventy feet in length in the skeleton.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish?—Will He ... 5 Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale's tail to begin at that point of the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet.
6 The contrast between this Ottoman and his concubines is striking; because, while he is always of the largest leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not more than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters. 7 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.
8 So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale his only food.
9 With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this one fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were going with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuit for the time.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin. 10 It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship.