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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: drawing a single breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle
of air; for, remember, he has no gills. How is this? Between his
ribs and on each side of his spine he is supplied with a remarkable
involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels,
when he quits the surface, are completely distended with oxygenated
blood. So that for an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea,
he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel
crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus supply of drink for
future use in its four supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact
of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the supposition founded
upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I
Moby Dick |
