412 WHALE-IISHEIIV. 



cicnt time in one season for performing tliis operation 

 on shore. INIy Father has made several attempts 

 to accomplish it on ship-board, but the tenacious 

 confinement of the oil by the fibre of the blubber, 

 rendered every attempt to extract the whole con- 

 tents unavailing. After the process was finished, 

 he always found that the fcnks still held a consider- 

 able proportion of the oil, amounting to perhaps 

 one-third of the original quantity, which he could 

 hit on no cfiectual method of extracting. He tried 

 a hydrostatic press and other machines for squeezing 

 it out, but these likewise failed of producing the 

 wished effect. The idea was therefore abandoned, 

 particularly as the increase in value of the oil thus 

 obtained was not sufficient to compensate for the 

 quantity which was lost. It therefore appears, 

 that the putrefying process serves to relax the te- 

 nacity of the cellular substance of the blubber, and 

 permits nearly the whole oil to ooze out, and is 

 therefore serviceable to the manufacturer, though 

 injurious to tlic quality of the oil. 



Between the adipose and muscular substances 

 surrounding the body of the whale, is interposed a 

 kind of loose spongy fat, or in some places fat in- 

 termixed with muscular fiesh. This substance, be- 

 fore alluded to under the name of hren£r, aflTords so 

 little oil in the usual Avay, that it is frequently 

 thrown overboard. But on the application of the 

 boiling apparatus to it in Greenland, my Father 



