OIL PREPARED IN SPITZBERGEN. 175 



The blubber being made fast to the shore, a 

 " water-side-man," standing in a pair of boots, mid- 

 leg in the sea, flayed off the fleshy parts, and cut 

 the blubber into pieces of about 2 cwt. each. Two 

 men with a barrow then carried it piece by piece 

 to a stage or platform erected by the side of the 

 works, where a man, denominated a " stage- cutter," 

 armed with a long knife, sliced it into pieces 1^ 

 inches thick, and about a foot long, and then push- 

 ed it into an adjoining receptacle, called a " slicing 

 cooler." Immediately beyond this cooler, five or six 

 choppers were arranged in a line with blocks of 

 whales- tail before them ; and adjoining these blocks, 

 was another vessel called a " chopping cooler," of 

 two or three tons capacity. These men being si- 

 tuated between the two coolers, took the sliced 

 blubber from the slicing cooler, and after reducing 

 it into little bits, scarcely one-fourth of an inch thick, 

 and an inch or two long, pushed it into the chop- 

 ping cooler. These operations were carried on as 



MS.) who took in eight men, whose ship sailed when they 

 were engaged in hunting, and left them to winter in Spitzbergen 

 in 1630, — the period here refen-ed to, must have been within 

 a few years of this time. Gray's paper was registered by Mi 

 Oldenberg, Secretary to the Royal Society, in the year 1 662,-3; 

 so that both papers must refer to the same period of time, with- 

 in a few years at the most. Gray's paper, (the one I have prin- 

 cipally followed,) is by far the most clear and precise. It is 

 contained in tlie " Bibl. Sloan." N». 6y8. Art. 27. ; and Ander- 

 •»on's paper in the same department, N^. 3985. Art. 22. 



