The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-01-20

whale was hardly worth going Tor IN the
DAYS when "sparm" was king. for the
oil OF right whale and bowhead, known
as whale oiF' as against sperm oil,
was not nearly SO valuable, and the
whalebone was practically worthless IN
those far-off days.
Now conditions are exactly reversed.
Sperm oil is low in price and whalebone
has gone up. Therefore the pursuit OF
the right whale is still a promising
business proposition, as may be seen
from the fact that whalebone IS expect
ed TO rise to SO a pound as result OF
the bad luck of the Pacific and Arctic
whalers.
Even at that price the Arctic fleet viii
show loss. Most of the twenty ships
in the business are steamships, and they
cost on an average $4,000 to fit. Seven
ty thousand pounds of bone, even at 30
a pound, will not cover the expenses.
The crack captain this season was a
New Bedford man, Captain James Til
ton, whose ship, the Alexander, made
the record by catching seven bowhead
whale. She will probably declare the
only profit on the cruise. Another
steam whaler, the William Bayl1ss,
which sailed away on September 20.
1902, has returned with fifty pounds or
bone taken in trade and two polar bear
cubs as the net returns of her adyeT-
turing.
1t is a true joke of fortune that, in
the early DAYS, when whalebone was
practically worthless. the whalebone car
rying whales were plentiful near the
New England shore, while the precious
sperm whale had to be sought Tor IN
the open ocean and in distant seas: and
now the sperm whales are fairly plenti-
full IN the Atlantic between the Massa-
cflusetts coast and the Azores, while the
whalebonet whales are hidden away in
the Arctic.
FIRST WHALER A WITCH.
They were right whales that were tax
en- by William Hamilton, who appeared
on Cape Cod in 1913 and became so
overwhelmingly successful that his p1ous
fellowrnen soon made him the object OF
their Jealous regard as being one who
dealt in witchcraft. Mr.. Hamilton
found it prudent to abandon whaling
over night, and to remove himself into
another neighborhood as swiftly as pos
sibIe
However, Cape Cod swallowed its
doubts as to witchcraft in the whale
fisheries, and its inhabitants soon learn
ed to kill whales full as well as the
suspected Hamilton had done. SO, IN
1000. the folk of Nantucket engaged
Ichabod Paddock of Cape Cod to set
tie on their island and teach them to
kill whales.
They killed right whales at short dis
tances from the shore until 1900, when
the animals found the matter monoto-
nous and moved off, Then small sloops
of about fifty tons were used to go out
to off shore grounds
In the meantime in 1872, Nan
tucket whaler that had been blown on
snore in a gale, struck the first sperm
whale and began the great business or
deep" ocean whaling.
Before long, tire whalers of New Eng.
land had ventured north to the Gt1it OF
Ct Lawrence and to the Grand Banks
in pursuit of the right whales, which
were withdrawing more and more from
the overturned Massachusetts coast. In
1868 almost a hundred vessels, few OF
them more than seventy-hve tons III
burden (not so large as many pleasure
Yachts of today), took whale off New.
fo1ndland and worked into the ice OF
the Straits of Belle Isle.
Before the revolutionary war began
the Nantucket whalers had begun TO
occupy all the whaling grounds OF the
Atlantic. Captain Uriah Bunker IN the
brig Amazon, the first Nantucket wlaler
IN cross the equator, arrived at home
from his voyage on the very day OF
the battle of Lexington
It was Nantucket man, Captain
Folqer. who first charted the gull
stream. Benjamin Franklin caused this
chart to be engraved for the use OF
nayigators, and it is substantially cor
rect today.
FIRST STARS AND STRIPES IN
ENGLAND.
IT was New Bedford wf1aler, the
padford which was the first ship that