THE VALUE OF WHALEBONE 377 



Jng from its sides within the lips a series of long bars 

 or planks of wonderfully strong, elastic, horny substance 

 —the " baleen " or " whalebone " — each plank being as 

 much as eight or in rare cases twelve feet long. Following 

 close on one another and having hairy edges, they act as 

 strainers so as to separate the floating food of the whale 

 from the water which rushes through its mouth as it 

 swims. The whalebone is of great value commercially, as 

 is also the fat or oil. A hundred years ago whalebone 

 fetched only £25 a ton, now the same quantity fetches 

 more than ;£'i5oo. The Rorquals, or " Finners," have 

 smaller heads and mouths ; their whalebone is so short as 

 to be valueless, but they grow to even greater size than 

 the Right whales and are found ori our own coasts and all 

 pver the world. The Hump-back whale is one of these 

 " Finners," distinguished by its excessively long flippers 

 and huge bulk. 



The Biscay whale was the first of these great creatures 

 to be hunted. The Basques began its capture as early as 

 the ninth century. It was exterminated by them in the 

 Bay of Biscay, and only saved from complete extinction 

 elsewhere by the discovery of the more valuable Arctic or 

 Greenland whale. The capture of the Greenland whale 

 began in 1612, and in 200 years the unceasing pursuit 

 of this species had driven it to the remote places of the 

 Arctic Ocean. It is now so rare that it is not worth 

 while to send a ship out for the purpose of hunting it, and 

 it will probably never recover its numbers. An idea of 

 its value and former abundance may be formed from the 

 fact that between 1669 and 1778 it yielded to 1400 

 Dutch vessels about 57,000 individuals, of which the 

 baleen and oil produced a money value of four million 

 pounds sterling. Of late years a single large Greenland 

 whale would bring ;^900 for its whalebone and ;^300 for 

 its oil. These two great Right whales having been 



