評(píng)論
打印
I have several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books. It is transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at here is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a new-born child. But no more of this.
我就有幾片這樣的干鯨皮，我把它用來(lái)做我那些鯨學(xué)書(shū)的書(shū)簽。這種東西，如上所述，是透明的，而且把它放在書(shū)頁(yè)上，我有時(shí)還會(huì)自得其樂(lè)地認(rèn)為它有一種放大的作用。總之，可以這樣說(shuō)，用鯨皮鏡來(lái)讀鯨學(xué)書(shū)，真是一件快事。不過(guò)，我在這里要說(shuō)的卻是這樣。我認(rèn)為，這種包在整個(gè)鯨身上的很薄的、云母片似的東西，似乎不很能夠把它當(dāng)作動(dòng)物的皮，當(dāng)做皮膚的皮，因?yàn)槿绻芽膳碌拇篥L那種正式的皮，說(shuō)得象是比初生的嬰孩的皮膚還要嫩、還要薄，那簡(jiǎn)直是滑天下之大稽了。可是，事實(shí)上就是如此。
Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters of the stuff of the whale's skin.
假定鯨脂就是鯨皮，那么，就一條十分大的抹香鯨說(shuō)來(lái)，這層皮就會(huì)出產(chǎn)重達(dá)一百桶的油，而且再就它的量或者不如說(shuō)就它的重量來(lái)考慮一下，這種油，按它榨出來(lái)的情況來(lái)說(shuō)，還不過(guò)是四分之三的油量，并不是它那層應(yīng)的整個(gè)油量。
