The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1856-10-30

CALIFORNIA FIsHERIEs.-Capt. c.. J. w. Russell fur
nishes TO the San Francisco Bulletin an article on the
fisheries of California, which will be read with some
interest
No longer ago than 1916, sperm oil was worth only
95 cents per gallon, and right whale but % and 40
cents, while whalebone brought but 80 and ~ cents
per Id. Now, sperm oil is worth from 81 80 to 81
Is per gallon, and but little to be obtained for burn
ing at that, most of it being bought for machinery
and the remainder being used in lighthouses. l viii
venture to say that not one man in five hundred who
buys sperm oil in various towns and cities OF the
United States ever gets the pure article, but receives
either blackfsh, humpbaek, or bleached right whale
oil instead. As but few comparatively know the diff
ference, perhaps they are Just as well satisfied. Right
whale oil now brings from gu to ~ cents Fer gallon.
Bone, being applied to many new uses, is worth from
so to go cents per ID. Although wonderful improve
ments have been made in agriculture, the arts and
manufactures within the last ten years, none OF any
Importance has been made in the whaling business,
with the exception of the bomb-lance and even that
is not so effective as could be desired. With but few
unimportant exceptions, the means used at the pres
ent time are exactly the same as were praetlsed forty
years ago.
Formerly, it was not an uncommon thing for ships
to return home with $500 or 8, 600 barrels Of oil, af-
ter an absence of but twelve or fifteen months now,
if that quantity is obtained iu three years it is consid-
cred a good voyage. The old whaling grounds of the
Crozetts, Brazil and Chile, and the coasts of New
Holland and New Zealand, are now hardly worth
visiting. In miners parlance, those digglngs are
worked out. Not one ship in ten is now able to do a
DfOuCaDIe season 5 Work Cl0fe. Liz only RrOuHuS
which are really valuable at the present day are the
coast of Kamschatka, the Ochotsk Sea, Arctic Ocean,
and northwest coast of America and there the whales
are becoming more scarce every year, and more DIFF
fcult to catch.
Any person can ne1ceive this who will take the
trouble 70 examine the reports of the whalers that
have arrived at the Sandwich Islands within the last
five years.
Unless some method is adopted by which we can
catch the humpback and fnback, whaling will cease
to be the principal business of New Bedford, Nantuck-
ct and other large places that have been built up and
are supported by it. This is a stubborn fact that
must be acknowledged if we draw our Indifference
from the past. 1t is but little more than seventy
years ago that whaling was commenced by the inhab-
itants of Nantucket and New Bedford. Whales were
then so numerous on the shores and in the bays of
New England, that the business was carried on In
small boats, which, having succeeded in taking their
noble prey, towed it back to the beach where it was
finched on top at low water, and then turned over
with tackles at high tide, so as to get at the under
side. But q short time suficed to thin off these visi-
tors to our eastern shores. Then sloops and schooners
were fitted out and dispatched for the purpose, which,
after taking a whale, would either tow the prize into
port, if the wind was fair, or cut it in alongside and
then, carry the blubber into port to be tried out.
This did not last long, the whales became scarcer
and scarcer, until at the present day our ships do
not stop short all the Arctic ocean, and their voyages
are often prolonged four, five, and even six years.
During these long trips it frequently occurs that their
crews do not put their feet on terra irma for six or
seven months.