88 THE WHALE EISHEHY. 



enclose at their lower end the large, soft, immovable tongue, 

 giving an ideal resemblance to the canvas falling from the 

 tent-pole over a monster feather-bed. The baleen itself 

 originates from a thin, fleshy substance resting on the gum, 

 which affords a continuous supply of the material requisite 

 for its wonderful after- growth. The whalebone reaches in 

 the larger animals from 9 to 12 feet in length ; it is externally 

 of a gray or greenish colour, while the fine fibrous filaments 

 proceeding from its inner edge are black. These latter form 

 a thick internal covering, which, acting as a screening 

 apparatus, permits no particle within it to escape, but 

 imprisons and sifts the small but extremely abundant 

 creatures, composed of shrimps, crabs, sea-snails, and other 

 minute marine objects, more commonly known by the term 

 whale-brit, which form the food of this monster of the deep. 



The price of oil from the sperm whale realised sometimes 

 three times as much as that from the Eight or black whale. 

 The ships first employed in the South Sea fishery varied in 

 tonnage, from one hundred to five hundred tons, and were 

 calculated to carry from eight hundred to five thousand 

 barrels of oil. They were fitted with try works or fireplaces 

 containing two or three iron pots, each pot holding from 

 one hundred and fifty to two hundred gallons. The fireplace 

 was made of bricks, so laid as to preserve the deck from 

 damage. The water was confined in a square formed of 

 planking. When the cargo was completed, or the ship full, 

 the fireplaces were taken down and the pots stowed aAvay. 

 In these pots the blubber was treated i.e. boiled or fried — 

 the mincing of the blubber being an important factor in the 

 easy extraction of the oil. The fires were fed principally 

 from whale scraps, the animal thus providing fuel to extract 

 his own grease. After the blubber had been sufficiently tried, 

 the oil was baled out and placed in coolers, generally made 

 of copper, to cool and settle, when it was put into casks hold- 

 ing about thirty gallons, called barrels, or into larger vessels 

 holding a1)out two hundred and eighty gallons, called tuns. 

 A whaler of 350 tons would make use of four boats and carry 

 two spare ones. - 



