3O ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



backs; and the right whales, once abundant from Oregon northward, 

 are now also scarce. 21 Starks says that in 1854 "there were shipped 

 from Honolulu (the Pacific whaling center at that time) 1,306,567 

 gallons of whale oil; that 650 ships and 15,000 men were engaged in 

 Pacific whaling, at a capital invested by United States citizens of not 

 less than $20,000,000. 22 



On the northwest coast of America one vessel in 1910 captured 

 fifteen Arctic right whales, and another reported a cargo of whalebone 

 worth $130,000 at $8.00 a ton. In 1911, 10,000 finback and hump- 

 back whales were killed in the Antarctic seas, 3000 in the seas of Eu- 

 rope and 2000 about South Africa, besides many around Japan and 

 South America; and in 1913 it was estimated that 20,000 whales were 

 being killed annually. 23 The latest information, just at hand, is that 

 the 1928-1929 catch of whales for the whole world was 27,566 whales 

 (blue whale 13,650, finback 9132, sperm 1761, sei 1549, humpback 

 304, others 1170), which yielded 1,867,848 barrels of oil. 24 More than 

 half of these were taken by Norwegian whalers. 



Baleen is whalebone in its natural state, before it is split into thin 

 layers. It is not really bone, but is "an elastic, horny substance which 

 grows in place of teeth in the upper jaw" of the group of whales 

 known as whalebone whales (Balaenidae). It functions in straining 

 crustaceans and other food for the whales out of the water. It consists 

 of several hundred thin, parallel plates, from a few inches to several 

 feet in length, and "stands quite alone among animal substances in a 

 particular combination of lightness, toughness, flexibility, elasticity 

 and durability, together with such a cleavage (due to the straightness 

 of the parallel fibers) that it may be split for its whole length to any 

 desired thickness of strips." 25 In the bowhead whale the plates are about 

 10 feet long and from 10 to 12 inches wide at the base, but before 

 the larger whales were all killed off plates 15 feet long were obtained. 

 In 1821 the production of baleen in the United States fisheries was 

 62,893 pounds, valued at 12 cents a pound; increasing to 5,652,300 

 pounds in 1853, with an average value of 35 cents; decreasing to 



21 Evermann, The conservation of the marine life of the Pacific, Scientific Monthly, 

 xvi, 526-527, 1923; xv, 310, 1922; Mid-Pacific Magazine, xxv, 303-328, 1923. California 

 Fish and Game, ix, 31, 1923. 



22 Starks, A history of California shore whaling, California Fish and Game Comm., 

 Fish Bull, No. 6, p. 16, 1922. 



23 Robot, The whale fisheries of the world, Ann. Kept. Smithsonian Inst. for 1913, 

 pp. 481-489; reprinted from La Nature, Paris, Sept. 14, 1912; citing Norwegian Fish- 

 eries Gazette (Norsk Fiskeritidende). 



24 Townsend, The whaling situation, Science, LXXII, 652-653, 1930. 

 20 Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, vni, p. 6884, 1902. 



