不过，因为这个硕大的脑壳占着整个骷髅非常大的比例；它又是极其复杂的部分；同时，在这方面，本章又不想再重复，所以在我说下去的时候，你必须时刻把它谨记在心，或者谨慎地挟在腋窝里，否则，你对于我们将要观察的整个结构，就将不能获得全豹。
In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two feet: so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two feet, his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of plain backbone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once enclosed his vitals.
托朗郭那条抹香鲸骷髅的长度是七十二英尺；所以，当它有头有尾。是一只活生生的东西的时候，它一定就有九十英尺长；因为鲸骷髅跟活鲸比起来，长度总得缩小五分之一。在这七十二英尺中，它的脑壳和嘴巴要占去二十英尺，那根背脊骨大约也有五十英尺。跟这根背脊骨相连的，长度只有脊骨三分之一不到点，就是那个一度裹住它的重要器官的。满是肋骨的大围篮。
To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected timber.
在我看来，这个象牙围墙似的大胸脯，有着平坦的长椎骨，一条直线似的从那中间老远地伸展出去，可真象一只刚造好的、放在造船架上的大船壳，只消给它插上一二十根光堂堂的船头肋骨，暂时把那根龙骨换上一根不相连接的长木头就行了。
