84 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



In the north the largest whale we have killed was seventy- 

 five feet in length. But in the south, in the Antarctic regions, 

 we have fired into whales well over one hundred feet in 

 length, and have heard from reliable observers of whales 

 killed and measured up to one hundred and twenty feet. 



To get the full value out of a whale it must be taken to a 

 station on shore or to a floating factory. After the blubber is 

 removed thirty per cent, more oil is obtained from the carcass 

 by cooking the meat and bone in huge tanks. This meat 

 oil is twenty per cent, less in value than the blubber oil. 



The residue of bone and meat is ground into guano, 

 which fetches about 7 per ton. This meat oil and guano 

 together give an addition of more than fifty per cent, to the 

 value of the blubber alone. This guano is much used in 

 America for exhausted cotton soils, and I have been told 

 that it is beginning to be used for rubber estates. 



Before writing more about the cruise of the St Ebba, 

 I may be allowed to insert here another chapter of notes on 

 modern whaling made on board another whaler in these 

 same seas that is, to the north, east and west of the 

 Shetlands. 



