SCIENCE AND STEAM 331 



When the cooking is adjudged to be done — and this is gauged 

 either by the colour of the oil or by the elegant trick of spitting 

 into it — the lid of the manhole is taken off again, a big hook is 

 caught into the central stem, and all the ''internal workings" 

 of the boiler collapse like an umbrella and are pulled up through 

 the manhole. The oil and water are run off through their proper 

 discharge pipes in the bottom of the boiler, and what sediment 

 remains is similarly drawn out. Then the whole process is re- 

 peated with new material. 



But the floating factory has its grave disadvantages: instabil- 

 ity, lack of space, and the ever-present smell. Thus where shore 

 stations are practicable they are always used. And at shore 

 stations a slightly different method obtains. Each kettle has a 

 steam pipe, an inch and a half wide, running through it from top 

 to bottom. Connected with this are either several parallel 

 pipes or a single perforated pipe bent to a circle nearly as wide 

 as the kettle. The blubber leaves, three quarters of an inch 

 thick, are packed into the kettle, to within four feet of the top, 

 steam is turned on — forty pounds of it for about eight hours; 

 then the contents are left to settle. This they do for another 

 eight hours. The oil is then run off — a Number 1 grade if all 

 has gone as it should — after it, the glue water. Then comes a 

 second boiling of about four hours, and a settling of four to six 

 hours, and oil is run off again, which may be a Number 1 but is 

 more likely to prove of Number 2 quality. Still another boiling 

 gives a darker oil, such as is used by tanners. Whale oil is still 

 used as an illuminant, as a lubricant, as a constituent in the 

 manufacture of certain soaps, and as an essential of the most 

 powerful modern explosives. 



For some years a whale-meat meal was made by a similar proc- 

 ess of steam pressure and draining. The remaining meat was 

 artificially dried in an enormous cylindrical dryer with two or 

 three fireplaces for coke at the bottom of it. When it was com- 

 pletely dried it was mechanically disintegrated and bagged, and 

 then shipped to Norway for cattle food. According to report, 

 the cattle liked it, it was a highly concentrated food, and when 

 fed with hay or cut straw, it caused no trace of oily taste or 



