26 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



a fleece). 4 The rapid increase in production is shown by the fact that 

 in the United States in 1927 it was 13,470,000 pounds, while in 1926 

 in South Africa it was 10,681,000 and in Turkey 6,5oo,ooo. 5 



In South America the vicuna, alpaca and llama yield wool and 

 woolly hair of importance, and, as almost everybody knows, camels' 

 hair from Asia is used for many purposes. We are told of dogs that 

 formerly existed on the northwest coast of North America, whose long 

 hair was mingled with an undercoat of woolly material. They were 

 closely sheared by the Indians, the material having been used in the 

 manufacture of blankets, some of which are still preserved in muse- 

 ums, though apparently the dogs have disappeared. 6 



It is impossible for the present generation, provided with electric 

 lights, numerous petroleum products and other materials better for 

 many purposes than those obtained from whales and other marine 

 mammals, to form an adequate idea of the importance to former gen- 

 erations of whalebone, whale oil, sperm oil, sperm candles and other 

 commodities brought to market by the whalers. Whaling and sealing 

 were once among the most consequential industries of the world, but 

 have now dwindled to relative insignificance, as various other indus- 

 tries have so greatly expanded, although whale oil is yet an important 

 item in the manufacture of soap. The rise and fall of whaling has 

 been spectacular, and much of romance, as well as of hardship, are in- 

 corporated into its history, which has been discussed at length by vari- 

 ous authors. 7 



Whaling was an ancient industry on the shores of northern Europe 

 and Arctic America. It was introduced along the shores of western 

 Europe by the Northmen, and systematically and extensively followed 

 by the Biscayans in the fifteenth century, though the whale fisheries 

 did not assume great world importance until the seventeenth century. 

 It reached temperate America soon after the discovery of the conti- 

 nent, and finally reached the point where, in 1834, $12,000,000 were 

 invested in whaling enterprises in New England alone a very large 



4 Williams, The Angora goat, Farmers' Bull. No. 1203, 1921. 



6 U. S. Dept. Agric. and Dept. Commerce, Interdepartmental Committee on Angora 

 goat and mohair industry, Miscell. Circular No. 50, 1929. 



"Leechman, Fleece-bearing dogs, Nature Magazine, xiv, 177-178, 1929. 



7 Starbuck, History of the American whale fishery from its earliest inception to 

 the year 1876, Kept. U. S. Fish Comm. for 1875-76, pp. 1-779. Jenkins, A history of the 

 whale fisheries, London, 1921. Hohman, The American whaleman: A study of life 

 and labor in the whaling industry, N.Y., 1928. Cook, J. A., The whale: A quarter- 

 century of whaling in the Arctic, Boston, 1926. See also various publications cited 

 in subsequent footnotes of this chapter. 



