COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 231 



an occasional whale still appears from time to time in the harbor at Provincetown, there is rarely 

 any special attempt made to capture the visitor. For the oil commands but a small price 

 and the whale guns and bomb-lances are laid on the shelf. The occasional dead whale that 

 now drifts ashore is looked upon rather as a common nuisance than as a prize, and the local 

 Boards of Health rather than the whalemen see to its disposal. 



Commercial Value. 



From the facts given in the preceding pages it appears that the average production of 

 forty-six Finbacks killed in our waters in 1885 was about 650.5 gallons (20-(- barrels) of oil 

 apiece valued at that time at $260.20. Thirty-five whales produced 250 pounds of whalebone 

 apiece on an average, which at 15 cents a pound, made the yield per whale worth $37.50. The 

 total value of each whale was therefore $297.70, or nearly three hundred dollars. 



A yield of twenty barrels of oil per whale is perhaps a high average. Atwood mentions 

 fourteen and twenty barrels respectively from two Finbacks. From one large and very fat 

 cow whale, 65 feet long, thirty-two barrels of oil were made, an unusual amount. 



The oil from whales of this genus and of the Humpback differs from that of the Sperm 

 Whale in its high percentage of glycerine, 6 to 10 percent on an average, or even as much as 

 14 percent. According to the 1915 report of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the demand 

 for glycerine for the manufacture of explosives has given great impetus to this branch of the 

 whaling industry, particularly in Pacific waters. Most of the oil goes to the English market, 

 and the price has risen from 35 cents a gallon in 1913 to 55 cents in 1915. 



The baleen of the Finback is, next to that of the Pollack Whale, the best in quality except- 

 ing, of course, that produced by the Arctic Bowhead and the Right Whale. Its manufacture 

 into strips of various sizes and quahties is described by Stevenson (1907). 



A much greater return than a bare ^'300 per whale could be had with proper facilities foi- 

 u.sing the entire carcass. The shore-whaling industry as developed on the Norwegian and 

 Newfoundland coasts of late years has succeeded in utilizing every part of the huge animal, and 

 at the Newfoundland stations I was told in 1903 that a Finback Whale of average size was 

 valued at about a thousand dollars. The fishery there began actively in 1897, and several 

 stations quickly sprang up. These stations consist of a slip on which the whale is drawn from 

 the water by powerful steam winches, a house for the tryworks, another for the machinery used 

 in converting the flesh into fertilizer, a bone crusher, and houses for the workmen. The blubber 

 is cut off in strips by men using long blades set in the ends of poles. These with the tongue 

 are cut in small pieces, thrown into a hopper where they are further minced, and conveyed by 

 an endless chain of buckets to the vat where the oil is tried out and dipped off into barrels. 

 From part of the residue a glue is made. The carcass, after being stripped of its layer of blubber, 



