“Forward progress of the human spermatozoon is at the rate of about 1.5 mm a minute which, in relation to their respective lengths, compares well with average swimming ability for man.”
Driven by temperature and secretions, the sperm’s action is a fight against time; for
“A spermatozoon is only fertile if it is capable of performing powerful movements.”
Olson, on Melville: “He only rode his own space once — MOBY-DICK. He had to be wild or he was nothing in particular. He had to go fast, like an American. .”
Thus, the spermatozoon, like the salmon, swimming “a spiral course upstream.”
September 19:
“. . but as the land never appeared they presently believed nothing, concluding from those signs since they failed, that they were going through another world whence they would never return.”
September 24:
“. . they said that it was a great madness and homicidal on their part, to venture their lives in following out the madness of a foreigner, who. . had risked his life. . and was deceiving so many people: especially as his proposition or dream had been contradicted by so many great and lettered men, and considered as vain and foolish: and that it was enough to excuse themselves from whatever might be done in the matter, that they had arrived where men had never dared to navigate, and that they were not obliged to go to the end of the world. .”
“Some went further, saying, that if he persisted in going onward, that the best thing of all was to throw him into the sea some night, publishing that he had fallen in taking the position of the star with his quadrant or astrolabe. .”
Ahab, in MOBY-DICK: “Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling one after the other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: ‘Foolish toy! babies’ plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be in this wide planet, and the hand that holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all things that cast men’s eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth’s horizon are the glances of man’s eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!’ dashing it to the deck, ‘no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship’s compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea.”’
And Columbus — greatest dead-reckoning navigator of all time, whose bearings may be followed and trusted today, whose faulty observations of the stars never interfered with his level look at sea, signs, and weather — Columbus
“here says that he has had the quadrant hung up until he reaches land, to repair it. .”
October 7, course changed from West to West-South-West, to follow the great flocks of birds overhead.
October 10:
“Here the people could endure no longer. They complained of the length of the voyage. But the Admiral cheered them up in the best way he could, giving them good hopes of the advantages they might gain from it. He added that, however much they might complain, he had to go to the Indies, and that he would go on until he found them. .”
Ahab: “‘What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time. .?’ ”
October 11:
The crew of the Pinta picked up “a reed and a stick, and another stick carved, as it seemed, with iron tools and some grass which grows on land and a tablet of wood. They all breathed on seeing these signs and felt great joy.”
October 11:
“. . the Admiral asked and admonished the men to keep a good look-out on the forecastle, and to watch well for land. .”
“‘It’s a white whale, I say’ resumed Ahab. .: ‘a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.”’
“. . and to him who should first cry out that he saw land, he would give a silk doublet, besides the other rewards promised by the Sovereigns, which were 10,000 maravedis to him who should first see it.”
“‘Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke — look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce my boys!”’
October 11, course changed again to West.
(As a traveler to unknown parts, Columbus was of course expected to bring back tales of fish growing on trees men with tails and headless people with eyes in their bellies. .
And there was the light, seen by Columbus — or so he says — two hours before midnight on the Eleventh: “. . like a little wax candle rising and falling.” Be it the pine-knot torch of an Indian. . sea worms, phosphorescent. . or the jammed and crowded imaginings of Christopher. . whatever it be, Columbus, on the strength of it, claimed his own doublet, and the Sovereigns’ 10,000 maravedis. .
Ahab: “‘. . the doubloon is mine, Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have raised the White Whale first. There she blows!. .”’
Like a great albuminous globe, monstrous beyond all proportion, the ovum looms ahead. .
October 12:
“At two hours after midnight the land was sighted. .”
CHARYBDIS
ONE
AFTER ALASKA, Carl came back to Indianapolis, with a duffle bag of old clothes and odd relics. . bits of bone from walrus, seal, and man, pieces of carved wood, various stones shaped by the ocean, or by Carl himself, or perhaps by long-dead Indians. He stayed (as always) only a short time. . “just long enough to change my sox.” Then he was off, apparently without funds (this is another story, where his money came from, where he got it, or whose it was — he never seemed to have any except just when he needed it, and then only just enough), heading east. .
and the next we heard he was in Spain, flying a plane. . seat of the pants flying, he said, no instruments, no time to learn (he had never flown before). . for the Loyalists.
Columbus:
“this night the wind increased, and the waves were terrible, rising against each other and so shaking and straining the vessel that she would make no headway, and was in danger of being stove in.”
The first return voyage — as on all eastward voyages, the voyages of return, voyages back — opposite and contrary to those westward — he met dirty weather.
“At sunrise the wind blew still harder, and the cross sea was terrific. They continued to show the closely reefed mainsail to enable her to rise from between the waves, or she would otherwise have been swamped.”