THE AMEBIC AN WHALE-FISHERY. 



enough to fasten the tackle under the fin, the order is given to ''hoard," Avhich is 

 done in the following manner : The second tackle, which took in the head, now 

 being free and again ready for use, a boat-stecrer or officer cuts a hole in the 

 blanket-piece well down to the plank- sheer, and through this hole the strap of the 

 tackle is thrust, and a heavy wooden glut, called a toggle, is passed through the 

 thimble of the block -strap (as seen in the accompan3'ing figure), which secures it 

 firmly to the blanket-piece and completes the "board." Then the order is given to 



"take to anil lieavo away," when the fall of the tackle is 

 taken around the windlass and hauled taut, the men at 

 the windlass -brakes heave upon the tackle until the sec- 

 ond blanket- piece is raised two feet or more above the 

 plank -sheer, and the first is cut off and lowered down 

 the main -hatch into the blubber - room. The second 

 blanket -piece is then hove up, until the whale again lies 

 on its side, when the other lip is taken in by the same 

 process. The carcass is now turned liack down, by heav- 

 ing up on the piece, and in doing this, the throat-blub- 

 1 cut clear from that of tlie trunk ; and with a 

 spade, a hole is made through both the throat and 

 tongue, when the throat -chain toggle is inserted 

 at C, as seen in the diagram. Tlie tackle being 

 hooked to the ring of the chain, the throat is cut 

 from tlie flesh that adheres to it as it is drawn up, 

 and when hoisted liigh enough, it is lowered on 

 deck, or into the blubber -room. Then the body- 

 Idubber is cut in spiral folds — as represented in 

 the diagram by diagonal lines — and rolled off 

 down to the dotted lines behind the vent, where 

 the whole flesh of the carcass is cut through; and 

 the l)ackbone being unjointed, the main portion 

 of the mutilated remains of the animal floats clear of the ship, or it sinks to the 

 depths beneath. The residue of the fatty covering of that portion of the creature 

 known as the small, is soon stripped. The flukes are cut off close to the fluke, 

 chain, and the chain hauled in, which completes the modua ojjeramli of cutting -in a 

 whalebone whale. The animal having been cut in, the head, being on deck, is 

 next cleared away. This is done by stripping the blubber from the skull -bone; 

 then, with spades and axes, the baleen or bone is cut, with the gum, from the 



