WHALE FISHING. 



A single whale sometimes yields as much as a hundred to a 

 hundred and sixty barrels of oil, but as a greater number of 

 small, than of large whales are taken, so large a quantity is not 

 obtained from them all. Scoresby informs us that 498 whales, 

 taken in twenty-eight successive voyages in the seas of Green- 

 land, yielded 4,246 tons of oil, making an average of about nine 

 tons to each whale.* 



The Cachalots, as we have said before, furnish much less oil, 

 and those that are taken within the tropics are much leaner than 

 those of cold seas. A male Cachalot, seventy feet in length, 

 yields about fourteen tons of oil and spermaceti, but six females 

 yield scarcely as much. . 



The northern fishery often occupies more than one hundred 

 and fifty English ships, and the southern fifty or sixty. In 1831 

 there were despatched for Davis' straits and Baffin s Bay, seventy 

 five ships, which captured 330 whales, and returned with 4,100 

 tons of oil and 4000 quintals! of whalebone. At the same time, 

 the English fitted out twelve whalers for the Greenland seas, 

 which took 86 whales, 4,100 seals, and returned with 700 tons 

 of oil and 600 quintals of whalebone. The product of the whole 

 English whale fishery, for the preceeding year, was valued at about 

 a half a million of dollars. 



The number of whalers belonging to France does not exceed 

 twenty. In 1837 the number of vessels belonging to the United 

 States engaged in the whale fishery was 580 and the oil brought 

 home that year is set down at 181,724 barrels of sperm oil, and 

 219,138 barrels of common whale oil. 



This concludes all we have to say at present, about mammiferous 

 animals ; we next preceed to the consideration of birds, which 

 form the second CLASS of the BRANCH of VERTEBRATA. 



END OP THE SECOND BOOK OP NATURAL HISTORY. 



* A ton of oil contains 252 English gallons or eight barrels of 31 i gallons. 

 t A quintal is one hundred pounds. 



12* 



