Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-06-24

uct of the whaling indutry. with its
advent, a blow full between the eyes.
But now whaling is back" says DIR.
Schmitt. 1T is true, corset stays are
no longer desired by the feminine sex,
but soap is still bought by the world,
and more Of 1t than ever before. And
as for the bones of whales. these. too,
have come to have a commercial value.
To paraphraSe the old saying in regard
to the packer and the pig. 1t might now
be said of the whale, We use everything
but the spout Or almost everything
I'm Japan, where whaling Is gov
ernmentally controlled. whale meat is
q staple food. In Africa 1t is canned
and sold to the natives. Except for the
courseneSs of its texture one cannot
tell it from beef. The bones of the
whale are burned today and the char
coal residue sold to the big sugar re-
finerieS of Hawaii and the Philippines
Other manufactures grind the bones
and sell them for fertilizer and chicken
feed. Only the whale bone, that part
which forms the mouth strainer, is
lost to any considerable extent today
This is due to the fact of the age being
corsetlesS one.
in former times the cachalot held
a high commercial value; sperm oil for
the clipper ships. spermaceti from the
head for the manufacture of candles,
ambergris from the intestine for per-
fume basis, and ivory Today they have
the same value largely, but in different
directions. The old clipper ship is gone,
the candles are gone. But soap takes
the place of one and lubricating oil the
other. The FISH that made Jonah IA
nous was not to be lost altogether to
the markets of the world. The present
industry, fiourishing and full of profit,
dates from 1904 with the discovery of
the Antarctic whaling grounds
"A single whale will bring as high
as $4,000. The harpooner is the high
est paid member of the whaling pro-
fession. He has been known TO draw
as high as $4,000 In a single season.
Even the lowest workmen on a mother
ship receive good wages compared with
land workers.
Practically all crews today are Nor
wegianS. There Is no special reason
for this that I know of, other than
that they are very hardy people and
have followed the whaling industry for
years. The 'mothe. ships spend the off
season In the ports of Norway. Along
in Eovember-our November-they drift
down into the Antarctic. where 1t is
Spring, fully provisioned and equipped
for several months stay. They are COM
ing up from the South now. The small
er boats, from which the harpoons are
cast. and their crews, winter in the
ports of South America. A great many
are to be found at Rio Janeiro.
Several small boats are attached to
each mother ship, and when the whal-
Ing season is on, they put out from
home and scour the sea for a radius
of several miles, until they sight their
prey. A whale sighted. the light craft,
something like 100 feet long, enters in
pursuit, stalking 1t as a hunter stalks
the lion. Within 40 or 100 yards, the
harpoon gun Is trained on the unsus
pecting leyiathan and fired The hit
may be direct and all be over in
minute or so; again it may not be so
direct, and then there Is the mischief
to pay. For two hours these giants OF
the deep, that have been known, with
one flip of the tail, to destroy boat
and cast into the sea all the crew fight
1t out with their human adversaries.
Each harpoon Is tipped with an explo-
sive, which. projected into whale with
the hurting iron. finishes the job Of
destruction of life. begun by the lance
thrust.
Boats usually round up their catches
in spots of five That Is, when q
whale has been killed, 1t is 'staked' out
to a buoy. When five Of these have
been placed, the crew comes in trailing
behind them"
The new age of whaling is indeed a
golden age In the commercial sense OF
the word, but 1t will never have the
halo OF the once picturesque, colorful
maritime venture Look upon the old
whaier's ship, the pride of the heart,
and step into the realm of his great
enterprise.
"She was beautiful, swift In the
breeze, stanch In the storm, sharp as
a clipper. Wide spread in wing, sharp
in bow. broad In her beam and clean
In her run. A woman's head graced
her cutwater and half the gods OF
heathendom decorated her stern. She
looked more like a princes pleasure