﻿"8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



blubber oil is produced in several grades, some being used by manu- 

 facturers of fine soap, some as lubricants, chiefly in combination 

 with mineral oil, and still others in the manufacture of certain 

 foods. The better quality of meat meal is sold as chicken feed, and 

 the bones are shipped in bulk to Honolulu, where, after being made 

 into a fine grade of bone black, they are used in the refining of sugars. 



The overhead and other expenses of such a plant as that of the 

 California Sea Products Company are considerable, as it is necessary 

 to have much machinery of various sorts and large size, and a large 

 pay roll, which continues alike through times of cetacean plenty or 

 scarcity. Hence it is necessary that each whale be utilized to as 

 complete a degree as possible, and in this the company is as successful 

 as is the case with the proverbial slaughtered i)ig. And the work 

 must be done expeditiously, before partial decomposition of the 

 huge carcass has lowered the quality of blubber and meat. Hence, 

 in about three hours after being landed the whale has disappeared to 

 the last shred within vats and retorts. 



The prepared products from one whale of average large size may 

 be worth as much as $2,000 and from this it may l)e seen that our 

 whale supply is a matter of economic importance, and not merely 

 of aesthetic concern to those with emotional tendencies. When whales 

 have become sufficiently numerous in any district a whaling station 

 is at once started and invariably this continues operations as long 

 as whales are to be had in sufficient numbers to ofl:'er a margin of 

 profit, after which the station is abandoned. H whales existed in 

 ])aying (juantities along any of the remainder of our coasts, there 

 would be whaling stations there for their capture. In some few 

 cases the whales will regain a part of their former numerical status, 

 but in others they can never recover, and in all cases the rarer 

 species will have been reduced to^ the point of grave danger. Thus 

 the gray whale was believed by scientists to be practically extinct 

 on the west coast of the United States, but the whalers say there 

 are a very few left, and by great good luck we were at Trinidad 

 when one of these was secured — the first ever brought to that station 

 during the six years of its existence. A number of extremely in- 

 teresting observations, chiefly of an anatomical character, were made 

 of this specimen, as well as of the commoner species, but it was 

 saddening to realize that this might possibly be the last such op- 

 portunity afl^orded a mammalogist in the United States. 



Few naturalists are now so situated as to be able to observe whales 

 at first hand and it is felt that much of value will result from our 



