The mirror., 1919-10-23

y ChautauQwa Circle By L. J. W.
| The harpooning is now done
from the ship. and by means of
gun invented by a Norwegian sal
lor. These whale boats have high
bows to give a place for the gun
platform. The gun is short tube
cannon on swivel bearings. with
muzzle about three inches in diam
eter. It is discharged with a
krupp firing screw. The explosive
used is black gun powder with
bunch of waste as a wad. On the
top of this is the harpoon, which is
attached to long line connected
with steam winch on the deck.
The harpoon ends in sharp point
which consists of a hollow iron cap
filled with blasting powder. To
this cap time fuse is attached.
and the bomb explodes inside the
whale. The harpoon has expand
ing arms which spring out after it
enters the whale and holds it
while it is fighting for its life.
The whale has to be played the
same as a game fish, and it will
drag the ship this way and that.
The line. or cable. is about 1900
feet long, and about II inches in
diameter. When the animal is
dead this is reeled up by the steam
engine on board, thus dragging
the whale to the ship. The great
mammal is now filled with air from
the air compressor on board. This
makes the carcass so light that it
will float. 1t can then be towed to
the nearest harbor and anchored.
being marked with a white flag.
while the ship goes out to catch
more whales, or it may be towed
direct to the station.
Some of the whales weigh as
much as ninety tons. but they are
easily dragged along through the
water in this way. After the
whale arrives at the plant, that is.
the Port Armstrong plant to which
our ship was connected. is on the
southern end of Baranof Island.
about thousand miles north of
Seattle.
The plant has main building
that covers about a quarter of an
acre, and large warehouses for the
storage of fertilizer. 1t has also
quarters for its employees and
buildings for other purposes. It
is capable of handling 500 whales
in a season, and has number of
whaling vessels that steam over the
waters hunting for whales. l have
no doubt but what this plant has
been greatly enlarged within the
last few years. The whales are
hauled up an incline plane onto
the wharf by means of a donkey
engine. The men then get on the
whale, and cut the meat into long
strips about a foot thick and a foot
wide. The next process is cutting
up the carcass. In this the work
men use long knives and chop the
meat into thirty or forty pound
chuncks. They then throw it into
a boiler where it is cooked eight or
ten hours. The oil rises to the top
and is drawn off, while the meat
left goes into the drying tanks for
conversion into fertilizer. The
bones also are cooked. They are
rich in oil and valuable as fertili-
zer. They are crushed when they
come from the cooler, then dried
and sacked for the market.
Each sack holds about 200
pounds, and some years ago sold
for $3.50. The meat fertilizer,
which was powdered and sacked
the same way, sold for $500. A sim
gle sperm whale produces from
ten to twenty barrels of oil, most
of which comes from hole in the
head. It is from the sperm whale
That ambergris comes. The sub
stance is q gray wax-like solid
mass, that is found in the abdomen
i of the sperm whale in Jumps
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