WHALERS AND WHALING. 



off most of them, leaving exposed the rotting wood underneath, all 

 marked and seared by the nails which pierced it, and of a vivid 

 green color, saturated through and through with the copper from the 

 constant action of the salt water upon it. The New Bedford people 

 cut this wood off and sell it at a high price, for it makes a wonderfully 

 beautiful fire, and is much in demand. 



Late in the evening when your oak logs have burned themselves 

 down to a glowing bed of embers, is the time to throw on a few sticks 

 of drift wood — as they call it. Instantly, lovely blue, green and violet 

 tongues of flame spring out as if by magic, popping up, now here, now 

 there, and dancing like little sprites conjured out of the old storm-beaten 

 wood to tell of years of toil and danger, of long voyages round Cape 

 Horn and in tropic seas, of weary winters, locked in the Arctic ice, and 

 of all manner of strange experiences which lent a hand in preparing 

 this mysterious, iridescent fire on your hearth. 



