THE AMERICAN WHALE-FISHERY. 251 



20,000 barrels from the Humpbacks, Finbacks, and Sulphurbottoms. The value of 

 the oil may be placed at about thirteen dollars a barrel, which would give a gross 

 amount of $1,242,800, or an annual product for twenty-two years of $56,490. To 

 obtain this oil, not less than 2,160 California Grays, and eight hundred Humpbacks 

 and other whalebone whales, were robbed of their fatty coverings. If we add to this 

 one -fifth for the number of whales that escaped their pursuers, although mortally 

 wounded, or were lost after being killed either by sinking in deep water or 

 through stress of weather, we shall swell the catalogue to 3,552. To this add one- 

 eighth for unborn young, and the whole number of animals destroyed would be 

 3,996, or about one hundred and eighty- one annually. This may be regarded as 

 a low estimate ; doubtless the number of these creatures destroyed every year 

 by the enterprising California whalemen far exceeds the above estimate. But 

 this peculiar branch of whaling is rapidly dying out, owing to the scarcity of 

 the animals which now visit the coast ; and even these have become exceedingly 

 difficult to approach. 



