298 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



required to produce 96,625 barrels could be ascertained by a 

 simple process of division. But there were certain forms of 

 slaughter which brought no oil into the try-pots of the whalers. 

 Because of stress of weather or other exigency, some carcasses 

 were lost or had to be cut adrift before they had been relieved 

 of their blubber. Other animals escaped after having been 

 harpooned, but with mortal wounds which soon led to death. 

 Still others, killed after a long, hard chase, cheated their cap- 

 tors by sinking before their very eyes. Allowing an additional 

 ten per cent for such unproductive deaths, it developed that 

 some 4,253 sperm whales had been killed annually for 38 

 years, making a grand total of 161,614 for the entire period. 



The calculations for whale oil were somewhat more compli- 

 cated. This product was derived from four main kinds of 

 whales, the right whale, bowhead, humpback, and California 

 gray whale. The first three, too, were guilty of a higher per- 

 centage of sinkings after death than was the cachalot. This 

 was particularly marked in the case of the humpback. But 

 by allowing twenty per cent for unproductive killings in this 

 branch of the industry, and by taking 60 barrels as the average 

 yield per animal contributing to the supply, it was found that 

 the American whale oil harvest caused the death of some 3,450 

 whales per annum. This average, recurring annually for 

 thirty-eight years, accounted for a total of 131,100 animals. 



By combining the figures for sperm oil and whale oil, the 

 grand total of all whales killed by American vessels from 1835 

 to 1872, inclusive, was placed at 292,714. In addition there 

 was the slaughter caused by the whalemen of all other nations 

 and by American whalers both before and after these two dates. 

 By recalling, in connection with such figures, that the whale 

 possesses very slow reproductive powers, giving birth to young 

 only after a period of gestation which is appreciably longer than 

 that of human beings, it becomes evident that the theory of an 

 actual scarcity of game was by no means based upon pure fancy.* 



But whether due to an excess of deaths over births or caused 

 by an increased wariness on the part of the whales, it was un- 

 deniable that production was falling off rapidly and that a "full 



^ These interesting calculations were made by Scammon, C. M., "Marine 

 Mammals of the Northwestern Coast of North America," pp. 243 f. 



