June 17, 2019 - Chapter Thirty-two

This chapter, called “Cetology,” sets the stage for many more to come. In these chapters, the plot isn’t advanced at all, but the reader is given significant information about whales and whaling. Here, Ishmael offers his own tri-fold categorization of whales according to kind: folio, octavo, and duodecimo. He uses terms from printing in decreasing order of page size. Notably, although he expresses some doubt over whether fish and whales can properly be divided (noting that Linnaeus said they were not fish but other writers more recent than him said they were), Ishmael’s classification is decent.

That said, the word “mammal” does not appear in the chapter (or the book), although the Latin phrase penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem does (the penis penetrates the female, and the breast gives milk). At least the latter point is correct in classifying mammals somewhat.

A final point is that blue whales aren’t mentioned by Ishmael in this chapter; he therefore concludes that sperm whales are the largest whales in existence, although blue whales are significantly larger.