234 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



gallons of oil and 20,000 pounds of bone, would yield the same 

 number of dollars, gallons of oil, or pounds of bone, as a 

 "short lay" of ¥15 of a catch of 40,000 gallons of oil and 

 10,000 pounds of bone. The continued payment of the larger 

 shares of the earlier periods, in spite of the increasing size of 

 the later cargoes, would have entailed a heavy increase in 

 wages i and the fall in the fractional share, instead of constitu- 

 ting a decrease in earnings, merely served to prevent an in- 

 crease. The apparent drop in earnings, when properly un- 

 derstood, was really the maintenance of the status quo. 



Such an analysis, however, quite overlooked the fact that the 

 greater catches were secured, in general, only as the result of 

 correspondingly longer cruises. In reckoning whaling earn- 

 ings the time element was all-important. A lay of /45o in a 

 large vessel was equal, it is true, to an amount double that rep- 

 resented by /Iso of a cargo half the size of the first j but if 

 the former also required a voyage twice as long there was ex- 

 actly the same earning capacity per year or month in both cases. 

 Although actual conditions did not, of course, fit the exactitude 

 of this hypothetical illustration, it was unmistakably true that 

 the larger whalers of the later years were converted into "full 

 ships" only as the result of longer and longer cruises.^ If the 

 greater cargoes tended to increase the monetary value of a 

 fractional lay, this effect was largely or wholly offset by the 

 more protracted voyages. 



Other factors also served to disturb the relationship between 

 the number of barrels of oil and the earnings of the men who 

 filled them. Poor luck on the whaling-grounds, accident, dis- 

 aster, or mutiny might force a large vessel to return with a 

 cargo much smaller than that secured by a less roomy whaler. 

 The fluctuations in the market prices of oil and bone, as well 

 as the variations in quality, might rob a large catch of much of 

 its value or confer unexpected importance upon a modest ar- 

 rival. The caprices of the sea might entail the total or par- 

 tial loss of hard-won products. And even if a large cargo 

 were safely landed and sold at a satisfactory price, the number 

 of dollars due to the crew was often shamefully cut down by 



^ See Appendix E for detailed figures concerning the average length of 

 voyage for a period of years. 



