p.282 moby dick

Is it by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thoughts of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; it is for these reasons that there is such a damp blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows--a colorless, all-color atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues--every stately or lovely emblazoning--the sweet things of sunset skies and woods: yea, and all the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on form from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within: and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge--pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper, and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino Whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?

denatant and contranant movements.

Meek introduced these terms to describe the movements of fish in relation to the water current. Denatant means swimming, or drifting, or migrating with the current, contranatant means swimming or migrating against the current. To use the terms in connexion with the migration given in fig 1 (still to come), one would speak of the denatant migration of the pelagic eggs and the contranatant migration of the adults towards the spawning area. Now it is important to be clear as to what water current the adults are supposed to migrate against. The whole biological significance of the migration of the ripening fish is that it is in the opposite direction to the current which carries the eggs and the larvae away from the spawning area. Now it is important to be clear as to what water current the adults are supposed to migrate against.