I'.I.Ai KKISIIKS <>l: 1MI.OT \\ IIALKS. H 



USEFUL PRODUCTS. The peculiar products of tin- head of this cetacean, the sperm oil and 

 the *i>i'nnnc'ti, render its capture particularly profitable. According to Cuptiiin At wood about 

 one tilth of tin- yield of oil may he generally set down as the amount of spermaceti afforded by a 

 Sperm Whale. The tth are used by ivory cutters, and the ambergris is a substance- valuable to 

 druggiMs and perfumers. The parts of the body are to be described in the chapter on oil making, 

 where tiie manner of ciiitini; away the liltibl>er will be discussed. The great lower jaws with their 

 rows of bristling teeth are often brought home as trophies by whalers, and in Provincetown, New 

 Bedford, or Nantiicket may be seen gateways spanned by arches made of these bones. 1 



The following statement of yield of oil from whales taken by New Bedford whalers was 

 furnished by ('apt. Benjamin liussell in 1875: 



('apt. ('. Allen captured one Sperm Whale, which tried out 150 barrels. 



Captain Tilton captured one Sperm Whale, which tried out 154 barrels. 



Captain Spooiier captured one S|>eriii Whale, which tried out 130 barrels. 



Captain Rnowles captured one Sperm Whale, which tried out l'J7 barrels. 



A number of captains report Sperm Whales yielding from 80 to 1-0 barrels each. 



Tin: I'OKPOISE SI-KUM WHALE. A small cetacean rather closely allied to the 3] term Whale, 

 and called by certain authors the Porpoise Sperm Whale, occurs in the wa mer parts of the Pacific. 

 A specimen nine feet long was taken at Mazatlan, and was described by Professor Hill under the 

 name Kogia Floiceri. 1 It is of no economic importance. Nothing is known of its habits. A 

 sketch of the animal and its jaw are preserved in the National Museum. 



2. THE BLACKFISHES OR PILOT WHALES. 



DISTRIBUTION. Th Blackftsh, Gloliiceplmlu* intermedia* (Harluin Cray, is one of the most 

 imp., i lain and most abundant of the small whales of the east coast. It occurs in great numbers 

 to the northeast of the Grand Bank, and off the New England and Middle States. IJow far south 

 it ranges is not certainly known. A closely related species is the Pilot Whale or Cuing Whale of 

 Europe, (i. xritit'i-til (Lac.) Gray, also called Black Whale, Social Whale, Blowing Whale, and 

 Bottlehead, the. Svine -lival of Scandinavia; abundant in the North Sea and the northeastern 



1 In 1 >onv;las-s's North America (Boston and London, 175f>, vol. i, p. 57), the products of the Sperm Whale are thus 

 discoursed upon : 



"Sperma ceti Whales are to be found ulmogt everywhere, they have no bone, so called; some may yield CO to 

 70 barrels oil called viscous oil, the fittest for lamps or a burning light. It is from this whale that we have the par- 

 macit i v or spermaceti (very improperly so called). The ancients were at a loss whether it was an animal or mineral 

 substance ; Schroder, a celebrated Pharmacopoeia writer about the middle of last century, calls it Aliud genus bitu- 

 minis quod gperma ceti officiuao vocaut, he describes it I'inguedo furfiirosa product n exhalalioue terra sulphurcae. 

 We now find thai any part of its oil, but more abundantly the head-matter, as the whalers term it, if it stand at rest 

 and in the sun will shoot into adipous (leaks resembling in some manner the chrystalisat ion of Baits: instead of sperma 

 eeti. il ought to ! called adeps ceti, in the matcria niedica. This same w hale gives the ambergrease, a kind of per- 

 fiiuic. as i, musk: anciently it was by the natural historians described as a kind of bitumen, hence the name Ambra 

 grisea. Dale, a noted author, in his pharmacologia not long since publishes it as such. It is now fully discovered to 

 be some production from this species of whale, for some time it was imagined some peculiar concreted juice lodged 

 ina peculiar cystis, in the same manner as is the castoreum of the heaver or Fiber Canadenti*, and the zibethum of the 

 civ it -cat 01 hyena, in cystis's both sides of the Aui rima; thus, not long since, some of our Nantnckct whalers imag- 

 ined that in some (very few and rare) of these male or bull whales, they hud found the gland or cystis in the loins m ar 

 the spcrmatick organs: late and more accurate observations seem to declare it to be some part of the ordure, ilung, 

 or a I vine excrement of the whale; squid-fish, one of the Newfoundland baits for cod, are Miun-tiun > in Newfoundland 

 cast ashore in qiiiintitic<, and as they corrupt and fry in the sun they IM-COIUB a jelly or substance of an umlxTgreMe 

 smell: therefore as si|tiid bills are sometimes found in the lumps of ambergrease. it ma\ be inferred, that aniliergreae 

 is some of the excrement from squid-food, with some singular circumstances or dispositions that procure this quality, 

 seldom couciiiring; thus the Xautiickci whalers for some years last, have found no ambergrease in their whal.-s. 

 The Sperma ceti Whale has no bone or baleii.e in his mouth, but fine white teeth; they are most plenty upon I he coast 

 of Virginia and Carolina." 



i. 1 1 i.: Sperm-Whales, Giant and Pigmy, < American Naturalist, iv, p. 738, fig. 167. 



