CUTTING IN AND TRYING OUT 145 



hold not to be touched again until later in the 

 voyage. 



While the baleen was being prepared for stow- 

 age, the lid was removed from the try-works, 

 uncovering the two big copper caldrons. A 

 fire was started in the furnace with kindling and 

 a handful of coal, but kept going thereafter with 

 tried-out blubber called " scrap." Two men 

 dressed in oil-skins were sent down into the blub- 

 ber-room as the portion of the hold was called in 

 which the blanket pieces of blubber had been 

 stowed. Their oil-skins were to protect them 

 from the oil which oozed from the blubber. Oil- 

 skins, however, are but slight protection as I 

 learned later when I was sent into the blubber 

 room at the taking of another whale. The oil 

 soaks through the water-proof oil-skins and sat- 

 urates one's clothes and goes clear through to 

 the skin leaving it as greasy as if it had been 

 rubbed with oil. 



A whale's blubber lies immediately beneath 

 its skin, which is black and rubbery and about a 

 quarter of an inch thick. The blubber is packed 

 between this thin covering and the flesh in a layer 



