Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1896-07-21
THE oLD4wHALEs.
a Veteran Whaler Tells What He
Has Seen ana Done.

the water works, to an Omaha (Ncb.
rld-Herald reporter, and while it
is the proper thing for man to
affirm that there never will be any
days like the old days" yet in this
case the captain had the burden Of
proof on his sid3 -''--AsSa+Ss~-
why will there never be2 BE-
cause the big ones have all been
killed off and whalers will not let the
young ones alone long enough. to al.
low them to grow up. Suppose
Knowles, the California whaler,
hears that he can make $50, 900 or
$40, 600 in a couple of months by
sending one of his ships up north.
He will send it, Of course.
The days OF sperm whaling are
practically over. Thirty years ago
it was not unusual to kill whale
which would give 300 barrels of oil,
but now a l00-barrel whale is count
cd large one"
Il 'How does the whaling now COM
pare with what it was quarter OF q
century ago2"
There are not more than one
third of the boats now that there
were then, When mineral oil was
discovered it took the place of sperm
because it was, and still is, so much
cheaper. There always will be a
certain demand for the latter on &C
count of its excellent qualities, but
the demand will not be great. Still
a man can make living at sperm
whaling-a living but not fortune,
as he could few years ago.
THE only money that can be
made in this line now is in 'bowhead'
and right whales The former are
found an the ice OF the arctic seas,
the latter in the cold water between
the ice and the warm water in which
the sperm are found. These are
killed for the bone, and there will be
q demand for them until asubstitute
can be found for whalebone The
government has been trying to find
one for years, but never has sue
ceeded In the meantime the price
of whalebone has gone up from
twenty-five cents to six dollars a
pound"
How much bone will q whale fur
nish2"
II have seen q whale that was
worth $4,000, but an ordinary one
will give only about 1000 pounds. /
have seen them when they gave 5000
or 1000 pounds. Whales are grow
ing smaller year by year and never
will be as large as they formerly
were unless there is substitute for
whalebone found. Sperm are in
creastng during the lastfew years.
But the whaling business isn't
what it used to be. Few new boats
are being built for that purpose, and
those which have been built are go
ing to pieces at the rate of five a
year. One year SO were crushed by
the ice in one feet, and another
year l3 were wrecked.
"There are a good many whales
up in the Russian waters, but that
will not allow US to kill
them, and the Russians are no
whalers. The Yankee is the best
whaler in the world, and the Scotch
men come next to him. OF course
we could go up into Russian waters,
but the government will not allow a
whale to be killed within Is miles of
land, and it is along shore that they
ire found.
Whales travel around the world.
They go around the Cape Horn,
at feeding places such as
the Falkland islands. Sperm whalers
have been the best explorers the |
world has ever had, and they have
ound out more about the islands of
he southern seas than any other
people"
The captain followed the sea for
70 years, and many time now his
,eart wanders off toward the Arctic
'cean, and he wishes that he could
70 back among the ice foes for one
more exciting voyage. How many
wrecks he has been in be did not say,
,ut his description Of one north of
Point Barrow was enough to satisfy
common man. This occurred July
!, 1882, when he was out on a whal-
ng expedition in the White Star.
here is a reef about so miles out
rom the mainland, which makes q
God landing place for icebergs.
The ship had been in the snow
torn for weeks, drifting with the
stuck in pack Of ice. The
cebergs lodged on this reef were 100
eet high. The foe shut the ship in
md ground it to pieces against the
cebergs. The water just outside /,
he reef was 300 feet deep :