HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 155 



Upon examination it was found that a harpoon blade was run trans- 

 versely through the breathing-holes, and the whistling sound was 

 caused by the action of the escaping air against its edge. The iron was 

 marked with the name of the Central America, which performed her 

 last voyage fifteen years before the capture of this whale by the Milton.* 



The amount of oil obtained is uot always in proportion to the size of 

 the whale. The conditions of leanness or corpulence are quite as appli- 

 cable to them as to land animals. Sperm whales which yield 100 bar- 

 rels are considered very large, but this yield is occasionally exceeded. 

 Captain Davis, in his " Nimrod of the Sea,"t says: "The largest whale 

 we took made 107 barrels. Its length was 79 feet; from the nose to the 

 bunch of the neck 26 feet ; thence to the hump 29 feet ; from hump to 

 tail 17 feet ; length of tail 7 feet ; breadth of tail 1G feet C inches ; 

 height at forehead 11 feet ; width 9 feet G inches ; girt at fin 41 feet 

 6 inches; at junction of tail 7 feet 9 inches; lower jaw 16 feet long 

 and 11 inches in circumference at thick part. It had 51 teeth, the 

 heaviest weighing 25 ounces. Blubber on back IS inches ; on side 12 

 to 15 inches ; and belly 9 to 10 inches. The hump was 2 feet above 

 the level. The case made 19 barrels; body 73 J barrels; junk 14£ bar- 

 rels. Captain Sullivan, of the James Arnold, of New Bedford, off New 

 Zealand, took in one voyage 8 whales that made over 100 barrels each, 

 the largest yielding 137 barrels. The head of this made 52 barrels, 

 and the case baled 27 barrels. It was 90 feet long ; the flukes 18 feet 

 in length, jaw 18 feet, case 22 feet, and the forehead 13£ feet high. 

 During the same season and on the same ground, Captain Vincent, ship 

 Oneida, of New Bedford, took ten sperm-whales, which stowed 1,140 

 barrels. Captain Norton, ship Monka,| of New Bedford, took on the 

 off-shore ground a sperm-whale that stowed 145 barrels." 



In 1853 it is said that the ship Harvest, of Nantucket, took a sperm 

 whale which made 156 barrels of oil, exclusive of the jaw, which was 

 lost by bad weather. § In 1862 the Ocmulgee, of Edgartown, reported 

 having taken a 130-barrel sperm whale, with a jaw measuring 28 feet in 

 length. Captain Briggs, of the bark Wave, of New Bedford, reported 

 that on the 2d of August, 1876, he took a sperm whale which made 162 

 barrels and 5 gallons of oil. || 



The right whale is often taken with a much larger yield of oil, though 

 its length of body is considerably less than that of the sperm whale. 

 Another valuable product obtained from the right whale is the lining of 

 the jaw, or bone.fl This, as it usually runs, will average from 8 to 10 



*New Bedford Shipping-List. Captain Hamblen, of the Andrew Hicks, of Westport, 



took, in 1871, from a sperm whale captured near the Gallipagos Islands an iron which 



belonged to the ship Catawba, of Nantucket, and had been lost 20 years previously. 



This was the second time Captain Hamblen had recovered a harpoon lost from the 



same ship — the first time the interval between loss and recovery being about 7 years. 



t Page 188. J Menkar. 



§ New Bedford Shipping-List, 1871. || Ibid., October 10, 1876. 



IT The use of bone was unknown in 1578. At present its uses are multifarious. Mr. 



John K. Andrews, a whalebone-worker in Boston, kindly furnishes the following list 



