CHAPTER V. 

 CALIFORNIA SHORE-WHALOG. 



Although brief mention has been made in the Natural History department of 

 this work, relative to the shore -whaling along the coasts of Upper and Lower 

 California, yet it may be well to devote a chapter especially to this fishery. 

 California shore -whaling was commenced at Monterey, in the year 1851, by 

 Captain Davenport, formerly a whaling -master of much experience and enterprise. 

 The whales were pursued in boats from the shore, and when captured were towed 

 to the beach and flensed, much in the same manner, doubtless, as it had been 

 done by our New England whalers more than one hundred and fifty years a^o. 

 At the point where the enormous carcass was stripped of its fixt, arose the 

 "whaling station," where try -pots were set in rude furnaces, formed of rocks and 

 clay, and capacious vats were made of planks, to receive the blubber. Large 

 mincing -tubs, with mincing -horses and mincing -knives, cutting- spades, ladles, 

 bailers, skimmers, pikes, and gaffs, with other whaling implements, surrounded the 

 try -works; and near by, a low structure, covered with brush -wood, constituted 

 the store -house for the oil. A light shanty, with four apartments, served the 

 purpose of wash-room, drying- room, store-room, and cooper's shop ; and a sort of 

 capstans, termed "crabs," were used in lieu of the ship's windlass, whereby the 

 falls to the heavy cutting -tackles were hove -in, when fastened to the blanket- 

 piece, which served to roll the massive forms of the captured animals on the beach 

 during the process of flensing. 



From this experiment of local whaling sprung up a system of shore or coast 

 whaling, which has been prosecuted for over twenty years, and which now extends 

 from Half Moon Bay (latitude 37° 30'), on the north, to Point Abanda (lati- 

 tude 32° 20'), in Lower California. At the present time, there are eleven 

 whaling parties scattered along this belt of coast, located at Half Moon Bay, 

 Pigeon Point, Monterey Bay (two), Carmel Bay, San Simeon, San Luis Obispo, 

 Goleta, Portuguese Bend (near San Pedro), San Diego, and Point Abanda. The 

 organization of each party is nearly on the same plan as that of the whale -ship's 



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