Just a few years later, kerosene became popular as a cheap fuel for lamps, and excessive hunting began to destroy the schools of whales. In Chapter 105 of the novel, Ishmael expresses certainty that the whale will never be eliminated to the degree that the American buffalo had been. It is, he thinks, too difficult to find whales in the world's vast oceans. In only a few years, he would be proven wrong. The whale has become even more endangered in subsequent years.
The historical setting of the novel was essential. It contributed to the creation of a great book about whaling and perhaps to the writing of the first American epic.
