Ok so when I read the next part of the book I really did npt learn anything more about the plot at all. It was all, in my opinion a complete waste of reading time. It seemed like it had no relevence to the story of the book. I had a hard time gettting through it and didn't pick out much of it at all.  So, I will give you what I can,  but I still don't understand what Melville was trying to say during these few chapters. So one chapter is talks completley about the classification of whales. It is divided up into three books and talks about every type of whale and I wanted to scream! I learned absolutly nothing. I thought it was completly pointless in puting that in there. Do I really care about all these different whales? NO! So move on. At least, that's my opinion.THe only thing I learned was a new word, Cetology, or the classification of whales.  Next it just talks about how the officers get to eat dinner with captain Ahab, but the rest of the crew eats somewhere else. Ishmel doesn't seem to uppset about it and I don't think that I would be either. It would be more fun with the crew. So blah blah blah then Ishmel talks about standing duty at the Mast-Head and how mesmerizing it can be standing up there just staring out atthe ocean. I bet that it would be quite a view. Just being up ther, all by yourslef seeing what seems like the whole ocean. Wow, that would be a cool feeling. Ahhhh.....