The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-08-29
WHALING INDUSTRY DYING
THIS YEARS CROP DOES NOT
EXCEED $1,000 POUNDS ALL
TOLD.
There Is No Demand Now for tho Oil
From the Big Sea Animal
business Decreasing.

Whalebone is selling at $3.50
pound, and yet, the whaling industry
is dying, 1t is a curious. almost an in
credible situat ton, and yet it is the sit |
rescue and at one time the most extern |
sive of American maritime industries.
which butt up and supported half a |
dozen of the most tlourishing New Eng |
land towns of forty and fifty years ago. |
will soon be extinct as an industry, and
is never likely to become popular as
sport: and yet it was cabled from Lon
don a week or two ago that two and
a quarter tons of whalebone had sold
there at 6 5000 ton, and that there
only remained on the market in all the
world about four tons of whalebone.
SO that it is likely to be going higher
yet,
At present the entire whaling busl-
ness of this country, and that means
practically the world, is in the hands
Of the Pacific Steam Whaling coDl-
pany, with headquarters in San Fran
cisco and agencies in the east. r, r.,
Austin, the New York agent, grew up
in the business, practically inheriting
it from his father, who has been in it
for half a century ard knows it from
\ to Z.
Speaking Of the present scarcity of
whalebone, the elder Austin said:
This years crop does not exceed
$4,000 pounds all told. 1t is almost
famine. During the last ten years the
harvest has gun from 100000 to 100000
pounds; and yet even that was a ire
mendous falling off from the old days.
Why, we used to expect as a matter
of course from 100000 to 10000
pounds as the result of the years
catch. In those days whalebone was
perhaps 20 cents a pound. Now it's
$3.50 a pound here, and about s. on the
| other side.
NO, that doesn't mean the revival
Of The whaling industry. wish it did
,2ut fhA whaling industry is dead
NOT IL france, but dead-or, at any
rate, dying fasf. and beyond a posi-
bility of revfts,.. v5p see, in the old
days the whale y X chiefly valuable
for it's oil. Practically Ke supplied the
worlds light. But the wOfI has found
SO many other ways of Ngettirg light,
cheaper light and better light, thie f4le
days Of the sperm whaleing are We'll
past. Gas and electricity killed that
business. And now whalebone-which
caters purely to feminine vanity-is
the only prop left to once great in
dustry. Whale ola different thing
from the sperm Oils still useed to
some extent in the trades, tanning for
instance; but it is rapidly being sup
planted by menhaden oil, which is
much cheaper and ca non be obtained
close at home. Whale oil within the
last decade mas sold at 81 a gallon; it
cents: and there is little demand for it
even at that price, as menhaden oil is
70 no 70 f~I
run big distilleries out in San Fran
cisco, but We've given up that branch
of the business completely and are de-
voting ourselves entirely to the bone
The demand for the oil was not suf-
ficient to pay for it's refining and its
freight.
Why doesn't whalebone, wholesal-
ing at $3.50 a pound, mean revival
of the whaling industry? Because it |
costs too close to $3.50 a pound to get
it to market. Whaling nowadays is
not what it was. Whalers are not
sailing vessels of assorted sizes and
rig and mongrel crews. They are big, |
strongly built steamers, built particu-
larly with a view to withstanding the
pressure of ice. Such a vessel costs |
about 100000 to build, and about $780,
900 to equip for a cruise. 1t may be |
out for a year or two and come back
without having seen whale. Whales |
are scarce these days. Then, again, it |
may get caught in the ice. Last sea-
son we lost two of our vessels that
way.
THE whaling grounds are ever so !
much farther north nowadays than
they were thirty or forty years ago.
Moreover, it is the right whale that |
yields bone, not the sperm whale, which |
was formerly hunted for it's oil. The |