“Everyone knows what a multitude of things--beds, sauce-pans, knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling. At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the Pequod had been almost completed... But, as before hinted, for some time there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and ends of things, both large and small.” - Herman Melville, Moby Dick