302 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



a view to processing blue whales taken offshore by steam chasers. 

 The first surprise came when sei whales were found to be much 

 commoner than blues or finners, although only nine had ever been 

 recorded as having been washed up on the shores of all Europe until 

 that time. Forty were taken in 1883. At about the same time other 

 stations were established at Tromso and farther north in Finmark. 

 From these, rorquals of all kinds were hunted, the chasers returning 

 to port each night. The practice spread from Norway to Iceland by 

 1888. The job entailed the construction of a slipway headed by 

 heavy winches that could haul the largest whales out into the air and 

 of buildings to house try-works. The whales were cut up so that 

 blubber oil might be kept separate from meat oil; glycerin and other 

 products could be collected from washings; baleen extracted and 

 cleaned; and some residue from bones and the try-pots ground and 

 converted into bone meal and fertilizer. The so-called "manure" in- 

 dustry had made considerable strides since the period when it was 

 first mentioned in a newspaper advertisement in England. These first 

 stations together averaged fifty-eight whales per annum between 1 880 

 and 1885, and one hundred ten per annum during the following 

 decade. 



In 1 89 1 the second subphase of the period was initiated, this time 

 by a Scots outfit named the Tay Whale Fishing Company of Dun- 

 dee. They sent four steamers — not chasers — to the Antarctic, where 

 they spent the whole of 1892, wintering at the Falkland Islands and 

 returning north in February of 1893. They took only seals, but they 

 saw a superfluity of whales, notably rorquals. Then, in 1892 the Ger- 

 mans dispatched one sealer from Hamburg, and in the following 

 year they sent two more to the same area. They also brought back 

 reports of great numbers of rorquals, which so stimulated the Nor- 

 wegians that they sent an experimental steam whaler in late 1893 to 

 the same seas. This vessel took whales, but only of species other than 

 rorquals. She returned to her home port in 1895. However, nothing 

 of a practical nature was accomplished in the south thereafter for 

 eight years, although the whole industry went into a turmoil over 

 the idea of all-out Antarctic whaling by the new methods then being 

 perfected and already employed in the northern fishery. 



During this decade also, the Norwegian fleet steadily moved out- 

 ward across the North Atlantic. Establishments were planted on the 



