52 



DISCOVERY 



welcome addition to their winter stock of provender. 

 This meat is salted down ; when fresh the meat of the 

 Blue whale is like tender steak, but with a sweetish 

 taste. 



After the islanders have helped themselves, the flesh 

 and bones are cut up into manageable sizes and treated 

 in separate boilers, where a second-grade oil is ex- 

 tracted. After all the oil has been extracted, the 

 residue of the bones and flesh is ground up and used 

 for cattle meal and guano. Most of the oil is used for 

 soap-making, but during the war it was sold to the 



Fig. 3.— wh.A.i,EBOX1': ik'LM ]i[.ri., axi> 1 iNM.k \\i!\i,i LI r 

 OUT EXTIK1-; FKOM THii Ufl'liR J.WV. 



The inner mat -like surface is seen. 



manufacturers of explosives for extraction of glycerine. 

 The lower grades are chiefly used for the manufacture 

 of lubricating greases. The average yield of the three 

 commoner species of finner is : Sei whale, ten barrels ; 

 Common Finner, fifteen to seventy barrels ; Blue 

 whale, fifty to seventy barrels. 



The whalebone plates are separated, scrubbed, and 

 soaked in warm soda solution, washed in wai^m water, 

 and dried in the open air. When dry they are packed 

 in sacks. The baleen from fin whales gives fourteen 

 sacks to the ton. Most of the whalebone goes to Paris, 

 where it is used in the form of fine threads woven into 

 silken fabrics for stiffening purposes. 



It is extremely difficult to convey an adequate idea 

 of the enormous size of these creatures, but when 

 you see six men exerting all their strength to turn 

 over a relatively small portion of the whale's skull 

 which has been cut off from the rest, you get some 

 idea of their size and weight. 



It is doubtful whether whaling will last very long 

 under present conditions. There is general agreement 

 that in the future whaling all over the world should 

 be subjected to regulations for the protection of the 

 few remaining cetacea. All the older " Fisheries " — 



the Basque fishery of the Bay of Biscay for the Nord- 

 caper (Balcena biscayensis) , the Greenland or Spits- 

 bergen fishery for the Greenland Right whale (Balana 

 mysticetus), and the great Cachalot fisheries for the 

 Sperm whale [Physeter macrocephalus) — came to an end 

 through overfishing. In no case has there been a 

 recovery of the species sufficient for a resumption of 

 fishing, even after an unavoidable close time for over 

 a century. 



The great objection to whaling as at present carried 

 on is that so many pregnant females or females 

 with suckling young are killed ; theoretically, there 

 is a prohibition against the killing of the latter in 

 some areas, but there is no means by which a whaler 

 can identify a gravid female while it is swimming in 

 the water. 



The whalers themselves say that the Finners will 

 never become extinct, since whaling will automatically 

 stop when it ceases to be profitable. Under normal 

 conditions at present they stop when the whaUng 

 steamers get less than thirty whales each per season. 

 The whalers estimate that they kill about one in every 

 ten whales seen, and at first sight that seems reassuring. 

 While it is true that the Common Finner and the Sei 

 whale may be killed off with impunity for years to 

 come, there is strong reason for advocating interna- 

 tional protection for the rarer whales, such as the Sperm 

 and the Nordcaper, either by an absolute prohibition 

 of their slaughter for a term of years, or by strictly 

 limiting the number which may be killed at any 

 particular station. 



The Teaching of 

 EngHsh in England 



A Note on the Report nf the Departmental Committee appointed 

 by the Board of Education to inquire into the Position of 

 English in the Educational System of England.''' 



Mr. Fisher has been singularly fortunate in the various 

 Departmental Committees appointed to inquire into the 

 positions respectively of Classics, History, Natural Science, 

 Modern Languages, and English in the educational system 

 of England. All the reports issued have been of far- 

 reaching importance, but " The Teaching of English in 

 England " is in some respects the most interesting of them 

 all. Certainly it makes a wider appeal than any of the 

 others since the subject concerns not only teachers of 

 every subject in the curriculum oi British Universities and 

 schools of every grade, but also every English-speaking 

 man and woman the world over. The Committee were 



i Published by His Majesty's Stationery Office. 

 394. Price IS. 6rf. net. 



Pp. XV + 



