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Moby-Dick; or, The Whale · Moby-Dick, ch. 48 · block 23

Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme stern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.
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Herman Melville · 1851
Project Gutenberg #15, credited to Eugene F. Irey; updated 10 June 2026. Based on the first American edition, Harper & Brothers, 1851, according to the source catalog.
Mapped print edition: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851; First American edition).
Passage ¶1272: p. 245 (Scanned p. 245)
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Print pages are mapped to the Project Gutenberg transcription displayed here; this does not substitute the print edition’s text.
Locations cover whole source blocks in chapters 1–135 and the epilogue, plus the title leaf. The reading text remains Project Gutenberg #15 and can differ from this printing; consult the linked scan when quoting the print edition. The 23 source-note references have their own mapped pages. Front matter beyond the title, one decorative break, and the modern transcriber’s note are not mapped. Bracketed labels [i] and [635] are supplied for unnumbered leaves. Alignment does not certify verbatim identity.
Page alignment uses the transcription by Wikisource contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Gloss address: 48.23 · chapter.paragraph · global ¶1272
Frozen text and counting rules: g1-582503627a093f94.
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