INTELLIGENCE, POWER, 



before a special committee on wild-life resources of the 

 United States Senate, Mr. Lewis Radcliffe gave the esti- 

 mate that in the year 1931 alone 42,000 whales would be 

 killed, yielding at least 150 million gallons of whale oil. 



If each of the 42,000 whales killed in 1931 averaged 34,500 

 pounds in weight, that would establish a total weight of 

 whales taken annually, of about 1,450,000,000 pounds. 

 But what percentage of the total whale population are 

 these 42,000 whales, taken annually? 



In pounds, the weight of the whales taken annually would 

 equal that of 14,500,000 sheep, averaging 100 pounds each 

 in weight, or 1,450,000 fat steers, averaging 1,000 pounds 

 each in weight. If one acre of good pasturage supports two 

 sheep, it would require 7,250,000 acres of land to support 

 the number of sheep that equal in weight the number of 

 whales taken in 1931. This gives some idea of the vastness 

 of the green pastures in the dark depths of the polar 

 seas. 



In the arctic, with the handicap of far less sunlight, with 

 little or no lightning, and with only a desert level of rainfall, 

 it is estimated that there is produced in the sea 2% times 

 the food value that is produced in I acre of land in the 

 fertile Mississippi Valley. 



From the arctic regions toward the equator there is a 

 fading out of plankton, just the reverse of the fading out of 

 sunlight from the equator to the poles, of the fading out 

 of plant life from the equator to the poles, and of the 

 fading out of trees from the equator to the poles. Therefore, 

 some basic energy must contribute to the building up of 

 life in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans that is not found in a 

 comparable amount in the temperate and tropic zones. 



Looking out upon the water in the brilliant noon sunshine 

 at Churchill, on the Hudson Bay, we noticed one white 

 flash after another. These were belugas, or white whales, such 

 whales as were here on the day, in 1782, when the French 

 and the English fought for Fort Prince of Wales and all it 



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