Forenoon on Neiv Seas 189 



residue of the blubber after the oil had been rendered from it 

 formed a sort of monstrous crackling which burned furiously, and 

 there was always enough of it to keep the fire going once the kettle 

 had been filled. However, the oil kettle had to be kept at a certain 

 temperature, which was ascertained by spitting into the oil, for if it 

 got too hot, the introduction of new blubber would cause it to 

 boil over. 



Although the Indians ate the meat of whales with much relish, the 

 white men seem to have spurned it even in times of severe food short- 

 age. More curious still is the fact that, although the Indians rendered 

 the meat, bones, liver, and intestines, together with the food matter 

 contained therein, and thus obtained considerable quantities of oil 

 for their own use, no others seem ever to have considered doing this 

 regularly to all parts of all whales. Even the thrifty Hollanders never 

 discovered the obvious fact that there is valuable oil in all parts of 

 a whale, though there are records of their having collected glycerin 

 from the washings of the platforms at their early shore stations in 

 Spitsbergen. In time they might have learned of the oil value of the 

 rest of the whale if they had continued these shore stations, but 

 they took to high-sea whahng by the Arctic Ice where any such 

 practice was obviously impractical. 



The whales that the early colonists, and the Amerindians before 

 them, pursued were the same black right whales which first tempted 

 the Basques offshore. This species migrates south in the fall along 

 the eastern American seaboard just as it does down the Western 

 Euopean coast. During these migrations the vast, lazy beasts troll 

 along and enter bays and inlets in pursuit of their small, agile food. 

 In spring they move rather more rapidly northward again to their 

 cool, summer-water quarters, often traveling far offshore. Thus it 

 was that the Amerindians set regular watches from November to 

 April for their passing, but only kept a casual lookout during the 

 rest of the year, and then mostly for distressed fin whales or rorquals 

 that might be washed ashore. In those days this occurred much more 

 often than now because these animals existed in much greater abun- 

 dance in the North Atlantic prior to the Norse whahng revival in 

 the late twentieth century, which will be described later. 



The offshore whaling of the Amerindians was not, however, re- 

 stricted to the slaughter of the right whales, nor to the processing 



