57 



him, slackening sometimes to avoid a wild rush, but always reeling in 

 slack at every opportunity. The strain soon begins to tell on the whale, his 

 rushes growing shorter and less vicious, and finally he rises to the surface, 

 lashing the water white in his struggles. Should he blow blood when he 

 reaches the surface, the whalers know he is mortally wounded, and wait 

 until ho dies, but if he blows clear and quiet, the "pram", a i>eculiar spoon 

 shaped boat adapted from a Norwegian model, is lowered and rowed along 

 side and a long lance is driven into him until he blows blood, which shows 

 an internal hemorrhage, from the effects of which he soon expires, rolling 

 over on his back in his last struggle, and then sinking to the bottom. The 

 line is now rapidly hove in until a heavy strain shows the slack is in and 

 the weight of the whale is showing, when the line is run through a heavy 

 iron block at the foremost head, this being heavily rigged in order to stand 

 the tremendous strain. Fathom by fathom the line comes in until at last 

 the dead body is alongside. A chain is attached around the tail and the 

 winch then lieavos the tail out of water, causing the animal to bang ver- 

 tically head down from the bow. The vessel is then forced ahead at full 

 speed to bring the body to the surface. The lobes of the tail are then sev- 

 ered and brought on board. In order to make the carcass more buoyant, 

 air is blown into the abdominal cavity by means of a "VVestinghouse air 

 pump. 



If the whaler is not ready to return to the station immediately, a buoy 

 with the ship's flag attached, is secured to the whale, and both allowed 

 to go adrift while the vessel continues its hunt, sometimes as many as three 

 or more whales being brought in at one time, all \\ith their tails out of the 

 water, and hoisted to the bow. Upon arrival at the station the whales are 

 attached to a buoy in front of the ship, from which a line is taken and the 

 animal hauled into tlie mouth of the ship between two cribs filled with 

 rocks, which act as guides to keep it centered, at the same time to ballast 

 the nose of the slip under water at all stages of the tide. A large one 

 and a half inch diameter iron chain is then attached to the tail of the 

 whale and it is hauled out of the water under the "flensing" shed by a 

 powerful steam winch. As soon as the whale is in place, men with long 

 handled knives commence "flen.sing", that is, removing the blubber. This 

 is a layer of fat directly under the skin, covering the whole body like a huge 

 blanket, and varying in thickness from four to seven inches. The men 

 walk from the head toward the tail, cutting long gashes in the blubber as 

 they go, then a steel hook attached to a wire cable is hooked in at the 

 end of a strip, the steam winch heaves in on the wire, and the long strips 

 are peeled off one after another. 



As fast as removed the strips of blubber are put into the slicer, or blubber 

 cutter, and chopped into half-inch slices, which are dropped into an endless 

 bucket elevator to be hoisted to the blubber pots, where the oil is fried out 

 by means of steam pipes running through pots. After the blubber is ex- 

 hausted in these pots, it is conveyed in a chute to a drainage tank, where 

 the bulk of the water is separated by gravity, and then to the dryer, where, 

 mixed with the residue of the meat, it is turned into guano. After the blub- 



