THE AMERICAN WHALE-FISHERY. 2 51 
20,000 barrels from the Humpbacks, Finbacks, and Sulphurbottoms. The value of 
the oil may be placed at about thirteen dollars a barrel, which would give a gross 
amount of $1,242,800, or an annual product for twenty- two years of $56,490. To 
obtain this oil, not less than 2,100 California Grays, and eight hundred Humpbacks 
and other whalebone whales, were robbed of their fatty coverings. If we add to this 
one -fifth for the number of whales that escaped their pursuers, although mortally 
wounded, or were lost after being killed either by sinking in deep water or 
through stress of weather, we shall swell the catalogue to 3,552. To this add one- 
eighth for unborn young, and the whole number of animals destroyed would be 
3,996, or about one hundred and eighty-one annually. This maybe regarded as 
a low estimate; doubtless the number of these creatures destroyed every year 
by the enterprising California whalemen far exceeds the above estimate. But 
this peculiar branch of whaling is rapidly dying out, owing to the scarcity of 
the animals which now visit the coast; and even these have become exceedingly 
difficult to approach. 
