Moby Dick

In chapter 44, The Chart, Ishmael describes the intriguing migratory patterns of the sperm whale, which he claims, were they studied and displayed in a chart, “would be found to correspond in invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the flights of swallows (191).”  He says that attempts have been made at composing such charts, likely disappointed that documented proof doesn’t exist yet.

However, he includes a footnote on that page, in which he mentions that such a chart was near completion, parts of which had been included in “an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory, Washington, April 16, 1851,” apparently published after Ishmael’s telling of the Moby-Dick epic.  This narrative situation is rather confusing, given that the actual book was published in 1851 and that Melville was synthesizing all of these components.  It does make it much more dimensional written this way; Melville could have simply had Ishmael state that sperm whales travel in interesting patterns, but he chose to be circuitous, complicating things by having Ishmael claim something, then pretending that that Ishmael later found scientific evidence of that claim.

Points like this in the text, I think, spark the epic tale and protect it from being dull.  It is also funny how Melville – although he did have some experience whaling – was no scientist himself, but cited natural phenomenon, like whale migrations, as if he was one.  I would not be surprised if, like Ishmael seems to do here, Melville himself obsessively read scientific literature in effort to sound authoritative.

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