noon
It was of a conical shape , some ten feet high ; consisting of the long , huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale . Planted with their broad ends on the deck , a circle of these slabs laced together , mutually sloped towards each other , and at the apex united in a tufted point , where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like a top-knot on some old Pottowotamie Sachem 's head . A triangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship , so that the insider commanded a complete view forward . And half concealed in this queer tenement , I at length found one who by his aspect seemed to have authority ; and who , it being noon , and the ship 's work suspended , was now enjoying respite from the burden of command . He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair , wriggling all over with curious carving ; and the bottom of which was formed of a stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was constructed . There was nothing so very particular , perhaps , about the appearance of the elderly man I saw ; he was brown and brawny , like most old seamen , and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth , cut in the Quaker style ; only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest wrinkles interlacing round his eyes , which must have arisen from his continual sailings in many hard gales , and always looking to windward ; -- for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed together . Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl .