The Terrifying But True Tale Behind Moby Dick
The real Moby Dick was more menacing than Melville's whale
Humans have long been dependent on nature's resources. In the nineteenth century, that one precious commodity was whale oil.
Whale oil was essential to making soaps, leather, lubricate machinery, and most importantly, light lamps throughout the world. Whales even changed fashion. Women lined their corsets with whale bones, and ambergris — a waxy substance found in the digestive tract of whales — allowed perfumes to keep their scent.
By 1819, Nantucket was the world's whaling center and one of the wealthiest American communities. But as whales were hunted to almost extinction, sea captains had to take their ships farther and farther into the open waters to hunt down the gigantic mammals that fed the whale oil industry.
Although lucrative, hunting the great Leviathan was extremely dangerous. Not only did whalers have to survive pirates, artic temperatures, sickness, and utter boredom at sea, but they often had to survive angry whales sinking their ships.
And you can't blame the whales for serving up some cold revenge. The techniques for killing whales were pretty cruel. Often whalers would attack a calf (a baby whale) and hold it captive until the mother whale came to…
