Ill 



A DYING INDUSTRY 



OLD-FASHIONED whaling, as these words are written, 

 bids fair soon to follow the great auk off the seas and into 

 the dim rooms of museums. There the relics of the industry — 

 craft and gear, chests and scrimshaws, paintings and models 

 and log books and ship's papers — will keep quiet company 

 with stuffed sea fowl and the bones and teeth of dead whales. 



Exactly one schooner from New Bedford is whaling to-day. 

 The Japanese and Norwegians, with steam vessels and har- 

 poon guns, carry on shore whaling off their own coasts, and 

 there is similar whahng in the Arctic and the Antartic and off 

 the Hebrides. Whale products are still of economic import- 

 ance, and to this very day oil, bone, fertilizers, and even food, 

 come from whales. But, although modem methods have 

 made it possible to hunt with profit varieties of whales that 

 were too swift and wild and yielded too little oil to be profitable 

 in the old days, the old American industry is dying and we can 

 no longer go to New Bedford and see even an occasional old bar- 

 que outfitting for the sperm- whaling grounds. 



In New Bedford, where once sail lofts and rigging lofts and 

 shops of coopers and smiths did a thriving business to meet the 

 needs of the great whaling fleet, one can ferret out to-day only 

 an occasional rigger, or dealer in whaling guns, or a smith who 

 makes whalecraft. For one who is interested in the gear and 

 craft of whaling, it is still well worth while — indeed, almost es- 

 sential — to make a trip thither. 



In an upstairs shop lined with pictures of whales and whalers, 

 and with all manner of darting guns and shoulder guns and 

 irons, Frank E. Brown still sells bomb-guns and bombs. Whales' 

 teeth and ship's lanterns, and weapons and utensils wrought by 



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