VALUABLE PRODUCTS FROM MAMMALS 29 



all from 1803 to 1876, $116,948,558. This was at a time when the 

 purchasing power of money was much greater than at present, and 

 when "big business" was measured in thousands of dollars, instead of 

 millions or billions. Consequently, $116,000,000 meant a great deal 

 more than it does at present. Starbuck also says that in 1839 there 

 were in the North Pacific only two whaling vessels, with a catch for 

 the season of 2800 barrels of oil; in 1852 there were 278 vessels, with 

 a catch of 373,450 barrels; then followed a steady decline to only 

 eight vessels in 1876, and a catch of only 5250 barrels; that in 1761 

 there were eight sperm candle factories in New England and one in 

 Philadelphia, and that the exports of sperm candles (then in great 

 demand) from 1791 to 1811 ranged from 127,602 to 294,789 pounds 

 annually. 



In 1885 crews of Norwegian vessels killed 1600 or 1700 whales. 15 

 In Newfoundland waters 1000 whales were taken in 1904 and 1200 

 in I905. 16 In 1893 two whaling vessels took 126 bowhead whales and 

 the others of the fleet took from nine to forty each, in the Arctic 

 Ocean north of the Mackenzie River, while in 1904 in that region the 

 largest number taken by one vessel was nine. 17 One whaling vessel 

 took from Hudson Bay to London on a single voyage $150,000 worth 

 of whale oil and whalebone. 18 At one whaling station in the American 

 Antarctic 5500 whales were taken in a single season. 19 From 1874 

 to 1885 tne Arctic whaling fleet, reporting at San Francisco, brought 

 in a total of 194,217 barrels of oil, 2,509,568 pounds of whalebone 

 and 260,485 pounds of ivory. Kellogg has published a detailed table 

 showing that along the Pacific Coast of North America, from 1919 to 

 1929, both inclusive, 15,985 whales were taken, yielding 530,120 bar- 

 rels of oil. 20 In 1853 it was estimated by Scammon that 30,000 gray 

 whales annually visited the California coast. From 1919 to 1923 only 

 five individuals of this species were taken, though the total catch of 

 whales of all species along that coast during the period included i bot- 

 tlenose, i sei, 4 sperms, 5 sulphur-bottoms, 19 finbacks and 781 hump- 



16 Southwell, Notes on the seal and whale fishery of 1886, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 

 vii, 11-16, 1887. 



18 Prince, The whaling industry and the Cetacea of Canada, Government Printing 

 Office, Ottawa, Special Rept., 1906. 



" Preble, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 27, p. 127, 1908. 

 15 Preble, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 22, p. 39, 1902. 



19 Osborne and Anthony, Close of the age of mammals, Journ. Mammalogy, ill, 

 219-237, 1922. 



20 Statistics of whaling, cod-fishing and salmon-packing on the Pacific Coast, Bull. 

 U. S. Fish Comm., vi, 89-90, 1886. Kellogg, Journ. Mammalogy, xn, 73-77, 1931. 



