THE WHALE FISIIETCY. 



279 



her, are removed by the blubber-room gang with sharp kuives to prevent the discoloration of oil 

 when boiled. This process is called "leaning." When ready to boil the blubber the "horse- 

 pieces" (a) are pitched upon deck with forks and minced either with hand-knives or machinery.* 

 The slices (c) are about half an inch thick, almost as long as the blubber is thick, and resemble 



MINI KD BLUBBER OX MIXCIXG HOUSE. 



great pieces of fat pork. The pieces are called "books" or "bibles," from a fancied resemblance 

 to the leaves of a book. In this condition the blubber is pitched into the try-pots and the oil ex- 

 tracted. The residuum, termed "scrap," is used in boiling out the "catch," the fires being first 

 started with wood. Meantime the flukes of the whale are cut off, and at times hoisted on deck and 

 the blubber saved. The carcass is cut adrift, and, surrounded by a school of ravenous sharks and a 

 troup of greedy, garrulous birds, floats away and usually sinks. The head, which had in the first 

 place been detached from the trunk and moored by chains to the vessel, should next be cared for. 

 If the capture is an unusually large sperm whale, the head may be divided into two sections, the 

 "case" ;ind the "junk," and hoisted in separately. Previous to this, however, the lower jaw with 

 the teeth is wrenched from its socket and hoisted in. If a small sperm whale, the entire head may 

 be hoisted in and dissected on deck. The "head matter" or spermaceti is removed and placed in 

 casks or other receptacles of a similar nature, and the worthless remains are pushed through the 

 gangway into the sea. If a right whale, the upper part of the head, containing the whalebone, is 

 hoisted on deck, and the baleen cut out with spades, cleaned, dried, and bundled for the market. 

 The two lower lips are hoisted in separately and the blubber cut up and boiled. The body oil and 

 head oil of the sperm whale are kept in separate casks and marked " H." and " Sp. O." The oil 

 from all parts of the right whale is barreled indiscriminately, since there is no difference in the 

 quality. As fast as the oil is cooked it is bailed from the try-pots into a large copper tank called 

 the cooler, whence it is transferred to large casks, lashed to long rails on both sides of the vessel, 

 and kept on deck until cool enough to stow away below. It is then run down into the casks in 

 the hold of the vessel through a flexible pipe. The casks are " chocked off" or braced from each 

 other and from the ship by pieces of wood called " beds," and remain in statu quo unless the hold 

 is broken out to ship the oil by another vessel or when broken out in port. 



* The mincing-horse used in hand-mincing is simply a piece of two-inch plauk (6) about three feet long and a 

 foot wide, with several pegs (d) in the sides to keep the horse-pieces in place. One end slips with a cleat under the 

 main rail (/) and the other end rests on the mindng-tiib. As fast as the blubber is minced it falls into the tub. 



