The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries | Page 8

deal and whaling was a good business. Then came the discovery of petroleum and the Standard Oil Company soon found out ways of refining the crude product so that it took the place of whale-oil in every way and at a cheaper price."
"But I thought whalebone was what you were after!" said Colin in surprise.
"It was for a time," the captain answered, "after the oil business gave out. But within the last ten years there have been so many substitutes for whalebone that its value has gone down. There's a lot of whalebone stored in New Bedford warehouses that can't be sold except at a loss."
"Well, if the oil is replaced and whalebone has no value, what is to be got out of whaling now, then?" the boy queried.
"Oil again," was the reply; "for fine lubricating work there's nothing as good. It's queer, though, how things have changed around. Fifty years ago, New Bedford was the greatest whaling port in the world, ten years ago there wasn't a ship there, they had all gone to San Francisco. Now 'Frisco is deserted by whalers, and the few in the business have gone back to the old port."
In the meantime, while Colin had been telling the story of the adventure with the gray whale, and the captain had been bemoaning the decay of the whaling industry, the work of bringing the dead whale to the surface had been under way. Letting out more slack on the rope attached to the harpoon a bight of it was passed through a sheave-block at the masthead, thus giving a greater purchase for the lifting of the heavy body. The winch was run by a small donkey-engine, and for about ten minutes the line was hauled in, fathom after fathom being coiled on the deck. Presently, as Colin looked over the rail, the dark body of the whale was seen coming to the surface, and as he was hauled alongside a chain was thrown around his flukes, and the body was made fast to the vessel, tail foremost.
Just as soon as the whale was secured a sailor jumped on the body, carrying with him a long steel tube, pierced with a number of holes for several inches from the bottom. To this he attached a long rubber tube, while the other end was connected with a small air-pump. The ever-handy donkey-engine was used to work the pump, and the body of the whale was slowly filled with air in the same way that a bicycle tire is inflated.
"What's that for?" asked Colin, who had been watching the process with much curiosity.
"So that he will float," the captain answered. "You can't tow a whale that's lying on the bottom!"
"But I thought you were going to cut him up!"
"And boil down the blubber on board?"
"Yes."
"That's very seldom done now," the captain explained. "In the old days, when whaling-ships went on three and four year voyages they 'fleshed' the blubber at sea and boiled it down or 'tried it out,' as they called it, into oil. They always carried a cooper along, too, and made their own barrels, so that after a long voyage a ship would come back with her hold full of barrels of whale-oil."
"What's the method now, Captain Murchison?" asked Colin.
"Nearly all whaling is done by steamers and not very far from the coast, say within a day's steaming. We catch the whales, blow them out in the way you see the men doing now, and tow them to the nearest 'trying out' factory. These places have conveniences that would be impossible on shipboard, they get a better quality of oil, and they use up all the animal, getting oil out of the meat as well as the blubber. Then the flesh is dried and sold for fertilizer just as the bones are. The fins and tail are shipped to Japan for table delicacies. Even the water in which the blubber has been tried out makes good glue. So, you see, it pays to tow a whale to the factory. And besides, the smell of trying out on one of the old whalers was horrible beyond description."
During this explanation the huge carcass of the whale had been distended to almost twice its natural size, and now it floated high out of the water. The steel tube was pulled out and a buoy with a flag was attached to the whale, which was then set adrift to be picked up and towed to the factory later.
[Illustration: FINBACK WHALE SOUNDING.]
[Illustration: LANCING FINBACK: GIVING THE DEATH-BLOW.]
[Illustration: PUMPING CARCASS WITH AIR SO THAT IT WILL FLOAT.]
[Illustration: DEAD FINBACK SET ADRIFT WITH BUOY AND FLAG.
All Photos by permission of Mr. Roy C. Andrews.]
Almost immediately the "tink-tink" of the bell of the signaler to the engine-room told that the ship was headed