Vertebra of Sperm Whale
the largest of the toothed whales
21" across, weighing 11kilos
found on the shore Sandquoy, Sanday
one of the smaller vertebrae coming from near the tail
' Only on the profound unbounded sea can the fully invested whale be truly & livingly found out '
' There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton are not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white billiard ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they had been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest's children, who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple children's play.'
Ishmael - MOBY-DICK Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton
