84 THE WHALE FISHERY. 



voyage to the south ought to produce a net profit of nearly 

 £20,000. He claims that no enterprise at the present moment 

 can show anything like the same prospects of profit as that 

 he is so anxious to see entered upon. 



" The cost of establishing oil-hoiling works in Sydney 

 would he small, while the advantages to be gained, both in 

 the matter of aiJording employment and adding to the trade 

 of the port, would be considerable. The practice of whalers 

 is to strip the blubber from the whales and stow it in tanks 

 fitted into the ships, bringing it to their depots in that state 

 to be tried out. If the industry is revived in these Southern 

 Seas, Sydney would have a splendid opportunity of centering 

 the whole of this trying-out work on the spot, because, if 

 the ships could come here within a few days' steam from the 

 fishing g;rounds and get their blubber tried out, they would 

 certainly do so in preference to carrying it all the way to 

 Dundee or other equally distant ports at which trying-out is 

 now carried on. 



" Much more could be said upon this subject, but sufficient 

 has been stated to show that the matter is worthy of careful 

 consideration, and it is hoped that some enterprising colonist 

 will take the matter up and give it a practical turn." 



The ranges of the different species of whales and the places 

 they frequent, together with the seasons in which they are 

 to be found, are shown in the accompanying chart* which 

 Captain Carpenter has been good enough to supply. It will 

 be seen from it that the habitat of the Hight whale, which 

 is of the same species as the Arctic or Greenland whale, is 

 from 34° south latitude to within the Antarctic circle. The 

 sperm whale in the southern hemisphere is found between 

 the equator and south as far as the 63rd parallel of latitude. 

 The Ilarqual or Sulphur-bottom whale and fin-back extend 

 from the equator to the south polar regions. The Hump- 

 back is not found at all between the 15th degree of south 

 latitude and the equator, its range being from that parallel 

 to the Antarctic circle. The sperm whales in the tropical 

 latitudes are mostly small, their yield being from 30 to 70 

 barrels of oil ; but from 30° south to the Antarctic ocean 

 they grow to an enormous size, yielding as much as 165 

 barrels each. The Plight whale that visits the New South 



* See Appendices. 



