 Observers noted that the normally white whale's skin appeared bumpy with dark splotches, apparently altered by the polluted waters of the Rhine river.The Rhine was justifiably characterized as a sewer, since waste water from cities and chemical plants was for the most part poured in unfiltered.There is a suggestion that the appearance of Moby Dick in the Rhine and the effect the polluted water seemed to visibly have on the whale was the beginning of the environmental movement in Germany.