There’s a long post over at patell dot org about today’s chapter, “The Battering Ram,” complete with a diagram of the interior of a sperm whale’s head, an excerpt from Owen Chase’s narrative about the wreck of the Essex, and the abstract of an article entitled “The face that sank the Essex: potential function of the spermaceti organ in aggression,” which appeared in the Journal of Experimental Biology, and the final stanza of a poem by Schiller to which Ishmael refers at the end of the chapter.

“The Battering Ram” is read for us by Richard Sabin, Collections Manager at the Life Sciences Department, LS Vertebrates Division, at the Natural History Museum in London. Today’s wonderful illustration is Moby-Dick (2011; 8.25? by 12?; ink on watercolor paper) by Matt Kish, whom listeners may know as the author of Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page (2011). You can see the illustrations for each page by using this link to visit his visiting his website .

 

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