52. Before the whalers leave the fishing station, they cut the blubber into small pieces, and put it into close casks. Sometimes, however, when the ship has been very successful, there is a deficiency of casks. In that case, it is slightly salted, and packed away in the hold. But, as the ship must necessarily pass through a warmer climate, on her voyage homeward, the blubber, while packed in this manner, is liable to melt and be wasted, unless the weather should prove uncommonly cool.
53. When the vessel has arrived in port, the blubber is found to be melted. To separate the oil from the fritters, or fenks, as the integuments and other impurities are called, the contents of the casks are poured into copper boilers, and heated. The heat causes a part of the latter to sink to the bottom, and the former is drawn off into coolers, where other extraneous matters settle. The pure or fine oil is then drawn off for sale. An inferior quality of oil, called brown oil, is obtained from the dregs of the blubber.
54. The spermaceti cachalot, or Physeter Macrocephalus, is an animal belonging to the norwal genus; although it is generally denominated the spermaceti whale. It is found in the greatest abundance in the Pacific Ocean, where it is sought by American and other whalers, for the sake of the oil and spermaceti. This animal is gregarious, and is often met with in herds containing more than two hundred individuals.
55. Whenever a number of the cachalot are seen, several boats, manned each with six men provided with harpoons and lances, proceed in pursuit; and, if possible, each boat strikes or fastens to a distinct animal, which, in most cases, is overcome without much difficulty. Being towed to the ship, it is deprived of its blubber, and the matter contained in the head, which consists of spermaceti combined with a small proportion of oil. The oil is reduced from the blubber, soon after it has been taken on board, in "try works," with which every ship engaged in this fishery is provided.
56. About three tons of oil are commonly obtained from a large cachalot of this species, and from one to two tons from a small one, besides the head-matter. The manner in which these two products are treated, when brought into port, has been described in the article on candle-making.
57. The Biscayans were the first people who prosecuted the whale fishery, as a commercial pursuit. In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, they carried on this business to a considerable extent; but the whales taken by them were not so large as those which have since been captured in the polar seas. At length, the whales ceased to visit the Bay of Biscay, and the fishery in that quarter was of course terminated.
58. The voyages of the English and Dutch to the Northern Ocean, in search of a passage to India, led to the discovery of the principal haunts of the whale, and induced individuals in those nations to fit out vessels to pursue these animals in the northern latitudes, the harpooners and part of the crews being Biscayans. The whales were found in the greatest abundance about the island of Spitzbergen, and were, at first, so easily captured, that extra vessels were sent out in ballast, to assist in bringing home the oil and whalebone; but the whales, retiring to the centre of the ocean, and to the other side to the Greenland seas, soon became scarce about that island.
59. The whale fishery was revived, as above stated, about the beginning of the seventeenth century; and, with the Dutch, it was in the most flourishing condition in 1680, when it employed about two hundred and sixty ships, and fourteen thousand men. The wars about the beginning of the nineteenth century, extending their baleful influence to almost every part of the ocean, annihilated this branch of business among the Dutch; and, in 1828, only a single whale-ship sailed from Holland.
60. The English whale fishery was, at first, carried on by companies enjoying exclusive privileges; but the pursuit was attended with little success. In 1732, Parliament decreed a bounty of twenty shillings per ton, on every whaler measuring more than two hundred tons; and, although this bounty was increased in 1749 to forty shillings, yet the English whale fishery has never been very flourishing.
61. The whale fishery has been carried on with greater success from the United States than from any other country. It was begun by the colonists, on their own shores, at a very early period; but the whales having abandoned the coasts of North America, these hardy navigators pursued them into the northern and southern oceans.