54 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
for tlie purpose, a little way from the surf, where it remains until daylight or until such 
time as it is wanted to he stripped of its blubber. The whales generally taken by 
the shore parties are humpbacks and California grays; but occasionally aright whale, 
a finback, or a sulphur-bottom is captured. (Marine Mammalia, pp. 247-250.) 
The difficulty of killing the finback, and the fact that it has only a 
thin coating of blubber and yields but a small amount of oil, deter the 
whalemen from attempting its capture, though it is reported to be abun- 
dant. The sulphur-bottom is also said to be fairly numerous in recent 
years, but it is the most dangerous to attack and the hardest to kill. 
The whalemen do not like to fasten to whales of this species, and their 
capture is attempted only when they can be approached near enough 
to shoot bomb lances into them. 
Usually the whales are stranded upon the beach, where they are held 
in the edge of the surf, while the process of flensing or “cutting-in” 
(stripping off the blubber) is performed. The blubber is taken off in 
large oblong flitches or square pieces, one or more men standing upon a 
whale and cutting vigorously with sharp spades. When one side is 
stripped, the animal is rolled over by tackles. (See plate ill.) 
Captain Scammon thus graphically describes the scene at one of these 
shore whaling stations during the period when a whale is being “ cut-in ” 
and the process of u trying-out” is in full blast: 
Near by are the try-works, sending forth volumes of thick black smoke from scrap 
fire under the steaming caldrons of boiling oil. A little to one side is the primitive 
storehouse, covered with cypress boughs. Boats are hanging from the davits, some 
resting on the quay, while others, fully equipped, swing at their moorings in the bay. 
Seaward, on the crest of a cone-shaped hill, stands the signal pole of the lookout sta- 
tion. Add to this the cutting at the shapeless and half putrid mass of a mutilated 
whale, together with the men shoving and heaving on the capstans, the screaming of 
gulls and other sea fowl, mingled with the noise of the surf about the shores, and we 
have a picture of the general life at a California coast whaling station. (Marine 
Mammalia.) 
Preparation of products , markets, etc . — The greater part of the food- 
fish products of this county is marketed fresh, but a portion is salted; 
the quantity so prepared in 1888 was 10,000 pounds. Among the cured 
fish may be included mackerel, some of which are salted and dyied as 
cod are. The fact that the Pacific mackerel are not fat or oily, as is 
usually the case with the common species, except in spring, renders it 
possible to cure them in this way. Other products, such as abalone 
shells, clams, etc., are prepared or marketed in the ordinary way. 
The markets are San Francisco and the interior towns, notably San 
Luis Obispo. All the products of the whale fishery and the limited 
abalone fishery go to San Francisco, where also were sent 69,427 pounds 
of fresh food fish, and 10,000 pounds of clams; 60,000 pounds of fresh 
fish, and 10,000 pounds of cured products were sold by peddlers, or 
shipped to the interior towns by rail. The salt fish are generally sold 
by peddlers to ranchmen in the vicinity of fishing stations. 
The demand for fresh fish at San Luis Obispo and the other towns 
