Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-22
WHALES AND WHALING.
The Jewel in the Bowhead of the
Fright" Monster of the Deep.


The right" black or bowhead whale
like the toad, ugly and venomous" con-
tains within his head precious jewel in the
shape of baleen or whalebone. Its COM
mercial value is anything from $4,000 to
e. 500 ton. But for this economy-or, as
one may describe it. this prodigality of ma
ture-it is certain that the whaling indus
try, carried on through the centuries for
the sake of the oil derived therefrom, would
ere now have been extinct. 1t is the high
price of the commodity which has kept the
trade alive in Dundee, the one and only
port in Great Britain that is engaged in =.
In bygone days London, Hull, Liverpool
Whitby, Newcastle. Yarmouth. Lynn, Sum
derland. Whitehaven. Leith. Dundee. Aber-
deem, Peterhead. Dunbar, Montrose and
Boness, among other ports, sent their fleets
to the arctic to whale-hunt
AS Indicating the magnitude of the trade
half century ago. it may be mentioned
that for the ten years preceding the intro
duction of steam. in 1888. the aggregate
catch of Hull and the Scotch ports consisted
of 966, 112 seals. los whales, %, GIG tons of
of approximate value e1.259C2i
Now, the right whale. or to give her
whale is always spoken of in the feminine
a scientific appellation, the BaIaena mysti-
cetus. is confined to the arctic circle and
to the high latitude therein. 1t frequently
measures sixty feet long. The popularity
of the animal-it is erroneous to describe
it fsh-is the relatively large size of
the head. which measures fully one-third of
its entire length. The precious baleen de-
ponds from the upper jaw. record length
of bone is thirteen feet two inches. and a
record weight thirty-twO hundredweight
The size of a fish is measured by the length
of bone. so that 1t is somewhat puzzling to
the uninitiated to hear whalers talking Of
seven-foot and ten-foot fish" A twelve
foot fish Is very large whale, and is good
for from twenty to twenty-five hundred
weight of bone. The right black whale
Is by far the richest prize in the cetacean
family. not only because of its bone, but
owing to the weight of blubber which "She"
carries. 1t is sometimes much eigh-
teen inches thick. A large whale may yield
as much as twenty tons of oil.
The animal has a great tenacity of life.
1t is by no means uncommon for four boats
lines to be run out by fish fastened by
the harpoon. A boat carries five lines, each
of 100 fathoms. so that in chase of the
kind the unfortunate whale has attached
to it the better part of three miles of heavy
rope. Cases are record where quite a
fiotila of boats have been towed for more
than twenty miles. Once at close quarters,
the rocket gun. which discharges projec-
tile loaded with about pound of gunpoW-
der, and fitted with time fuse. is brought
into use. The rocket, II planted in a vital
part. is sufficient to make the animal turn
up. There are Still plenty of the right
whale in the arctic regions. The captains
of the Dundee ships just home saw many,
but were unable to get them
Akin to Balaena mysticetus is the rorqual
or ''finner'' whale (BenopteraD. This. the
largest of all the cetaceans, has an almost
worldwide distribution. 1t is the whale
that is hunted and killed in such large num-
bers at the Shetlands. The methods en-
ployed are quite dissimilar from arctic
whaling. The animal, which is not nearly
so shy as its relative, is stalked with a
small. swift vessel. At the bow is mounted
a large gum from which is discharged into
the creature bomb harpoon. Attached to
it is heavy hawser made fast to a pow
erful windlass. Bombs and rockets are en-
ployed to dispatch the whale and once that
Is accomplished 1t is towed to the shore sta
ton, there to be denuded of its blubber
and the short and relatively valueless bone
which it yields. The Balaena biscayensis,
now extinct, which was hunted by the
Basques in the bay of Biscay, and the Ba-
laena Australis. found in the waters at and
around the Cape OF Good Hope, also yield
short length of bone
Entirely different is the sperm whale, or
cachaIot. 1t is one of the toothed whales,
grows to large size. and is a most formf-
dable animal to tackle. From it are OBJ
tanned sperm oil and the priced spermaceti,
contained in cavity In the head of the
animal 1t is hunted pretty much after the
manner employed in the arctic, though the
boats work under sail. The sperm whaling
Industry is almost entirely in the hands of
Americans, and is carried on in tropical
and subtropical waters over vast area.