GLOSSARY 



WORDS A^D PHRASES USED BY WHALEMEN. 



Bailer. — A copper or iron vessel used in dijj- 

 ping up oil. Two of these utensils are used 

 on board of a whaler : one with a short, 

 upright handle, called the hand-hailer; the 

 other, with a staff to it six feet long, used 

 at the try -works for hailing the oil from 

 the pots, is called a long -handled bailer. 

 For illustration, see fig. 4, p. 239. 



Beeket. — A thing used in ships to confine loose 

 ropes, tackles, or spars. 



Black-skin. — The rete-mucosum and the cuti- 

 cle, the principal seat of color in whales. 



Black - whale, or black -whale oil. — Is that 

 produced from all the baleen whales, in- 

 cluding the rorquals. All these varieties of 

 whales are sometimes termed black whales, 

 in contradistinction to the Sperm Whale. 



Blanket -piece. — A strip or section of blubber 

 cut from a whale in a spiral direction, and 

 raised by means of the cutting -tackle. It 

 varies from two to four feet or more in 

 width, and is iu length from ten to twenty- 

 five feet. 



Blasted.— A term used to signify that a whale 

 is much swollen, or far advanced in decom- 

 position after death. 



Blink, or ice -blink. — A stratum of lucid white- 

 ness which appears in the lower part of the 

 atmosphere over ice and land covered with 

 snow. 



Blow. — Blow signifies the action of the whale 

 in making one respiration. 



Blubber -fork. — A utensil used in pitching the 

 minced blubber from the tubs into the tiy- 

 pots. For illustration, see fig. 1, p. 239. 



Blubber -hook. — A stout iron hook of seventy- 

 five to a hundred pounds weight, which is 

 used in flensing a whale. See illustration, 

 p. 232. 



Boarding -knife. — A sharp two-edged instru- 

 ment, principality used in cutting the toggle- 

 hole in the blubber of a whale, for tlie 

 jiurpose of inserting the strap to tlio cut- 

 ting-tackle, so as to hoist up the mass of 

 fat called the blanket -piece. For illustra- 

 tion, see pi. XXV. 



Bolting. — Signifies the action of a whale when 

 it leaps out diagonally to the surface of the 

 water. 



Bone -spade. — A cutting - sjjade, with a thin, 

 long shank to it. See cutting- spade, pi. 



XXV. 



Bonnet. — Cheever defines the bonnet of a Eight 

 Whale ' ' as being the crest or comb where 

 there burrow legions of barnacles and crabs, 

 like rabbits in a warren, or insects in the 

 shaggy bark of an old tree." [Note. — This 

 description applies especially to the s outh- 

 ern Right Whales ; in the northern Right 

 Whale's bonnet, but very few barnacles are 

 present, and comparatively few parasites of 

 any description.] 



Bomb -shot. — The distance a bomb -lance can 

 be fired into a whale effectively, which is 

 about twenty yards. 



Breaching. — Signifies the movement of a whale 

 when leaping out of the water, in nearly a 

 perpendicular direction or otherwise. 



Breaking black - skin. — The act of darting a 

 harpoon into a whale. 



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