Whale Products in Conunerce. 109 
exports have reached their maximum amounts brings 
out this point: 
Maximum ANNUAL ImporTS AND Exports OF WHALE PRODUCTS. 
Imports. Exports. 
Sperm oil...... 1837, 5,329,138 gals. 1860-61, 1,518,457 gals. 
Wihalevoilliigis « 1851, 10,182,000 gals. 1837-38, 4,824,376 gals. 
J 5: |p ANN 1853, 5,652,300 lbs. 1852-53, 2,852,069 lbs. 
In short the foreign demand for American whale products 
seems to have been influenced more by the failure of the 
European fisheries than by the success of the American 
industry. 
During the days of whaling prosperity both oil and 
bone were important articles of foreign trade. Whale 
oil was shipped abroad in somewhat larger quantities 
than was sperm oil but the usual higher prices of the latter 
made it of equal or even greater value. When the decline 
of whaling interests began about 1860, the commercial 
importance of whale products also began to fall, for it 
was almost entirely a lessened demand and decreasing 
consumption which induced the decline. Whale oil was 
the first product to be seriously affected because its uses 
as a cheap illuminant were most largely supplanted by 
the new petroleum products. 
Since 1864 the exports of whale oil have steadily 
declined, in only five years exceeding 10,000 barrels. 
And since 1899 the total exports have been only goo 
barrels—soo barrels in 1900 and 400 barrels in 1902. At 
the same time the imports have declined steadily from 
76,000 barrels in 1865 to 1,755 barrels in 1905. Thus 
both the home and the foreign markets have practically 
ceased to be important. With sperm oil the condition is 
slightly different. Its use in fine lubricants has pre- 
served a part of the former demand, along with the 
minor consumption in certain industrial arts. But the 
consumption is largely in the American markets. Since 
1865 the imports of sperm oil have declined on the whole, 
