1 Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished by her try-works.
2 The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most roomy part of the deck.
3 It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works were first started on this present voyage.
4 Here be it said that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed for a time with wood.
5 Meanwhile, others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been removed.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor. 6 Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the try-works.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand. 7 Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of the furnaces, directly underneath the pots.
8 There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, "he's been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long.
9 But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up. 10 Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors.
11 While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated ere going to the try-works, of which anon.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand. 12 One day the planks stream with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous masses of the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is deafening.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up.