478 



Porpoise - Shooting. 



scattered, and the pots containing the blubber were placed over the 

 stones and just enough fire kept under them to insure the melting 

 of the blubber. When melted, the oil was skimmed off into other 

 receptacles, then poured into tin cans of. about five gallons capacity, 

 and the process was complete. If the oil is pure, it readily brings 

 ninety cents per gallon, but if adulterated with seal, or any other 

 inferior oil, its value is reduced to sixty-five cents per gallon. A 

 very superior oil is obtained from the jaw of the porpoise. The jaws 



are hung up in the sun, and the 

 oil, as it drips, is caught in cans 

 placed for that purpose. The 

 quantity of oil thus procured is 

 small, being only about half of a 

 pint from each jaw, but a large 

 price is paid for it by watch- 

 makers and others requiring a 

 fine lubricator. The oil from 

 the blubber gives a very good 

 light, and was for a long time 

 used in all the light-houses on 

 the coast. It is also a capital 

 oil for lubricating machinery, as 

 it never gets sticky, and is un- 

 affected by cold weather. When 

 pure, it has no offensive smell, 

 and I know of no oil equal to it 

 for those who are compelled to 

 use their eyes at night. The light is very soft, and, when used 

 in a German student's lamp, one can work by it almost as com- 

 fortably as by daylight. 



If industrious, and favored with ordinary success, an Indian can 

 kill from one hundred and fifty to two hundred porpoises in a year, 

 and each porpoise will probably average three gallons of oil, which 

 is always in demand. But, unfortunately, the poor Indians are not 

 industrious, or only so by fits and starts, or as necessity compels 

 them. When they accumulate fifteen or twenty gallons of oil, they 

 take it to Eastport, Maine, to market ; and so, much time is lost in 

 loitering about the towns, and in going to and returning from the 



TRYING OUT BLUBBER. 



