Harpooning a Whale.
More capital is now employed in this enterprise than ever before; and, were it not for the greatly advanced prices of oils and bone beyond what they were a few years ago,—taking into account the scarcity of whales, the long time occupied on a voyage, the augmented expense of fitting out ships, in the high prices of provisions and other incidentals,—the enterprise could hardly be sustained a single year; and certainly but a few years. Immense losses would pervade all departments of this wide-spread system of commercial operation.
A few years since, the price of sperm oil by the quantity was only fifty to seventy-five cents per gallon; but now it brings one dollar and forty cents per gallon by the cargo.
Right whale oil was formerly sold as low as twenty-five cents per gallon by the cargo; but now it brings in the market seventy and eighty cents per gallon by the quantity.
Whalebone, which formerly was sold as low as six cents per pound,—and almost a drug at that,—in consequence of the increased demand for it, and the various and extraordinary uses to which it is applied, now readily commands eighty cents per pound.
Thus a cargo of three thousand barrels of sperm oil, at the present market value of the article, will amount to more than one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. A cargo of three thousand barrels of right whale oil, including the bone, will command in the market, as their value now is, more than ninety thousand dollars; a ship of four hundred tons burden, fitted for a whaling voyage, may be estimated to be worth from thirty to sixty thousand dollars; a bark of three hundred tons, valued from twenty-five to forty-five thousand dollars; a brig of two hundred tons, valued from fifteen to twenty-five thousand dollars; a schooner, valued from eight to twelve thousand dollars.
A vessel owned by a number of persons, or a company, is usually divided into halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds, sixty-fourths, &c.
The "lay" for which an individual agrees to go on a whaling voyage, is the proportion of oil, or its equivalent in money, according to the current value of oil, which comes to his share at the termination of the voyage. A short voyage and a full ship will be a profitable enterprise. Since each and all on board know their individual lays, all, therefore, have urgent, personal considerations to secure both for themselves and employers the greatest quantity of oil.
The captain's lay is from one tenth to one eighteenth of all the oil which is obtained; the first officer's, or mate's lay, from one seventeenth to one twenty-fifth; the second officer, from one thirtieth to one fortieth; the third mate, from one fortieth to one fiftieth; the fourth mate, from one fiftieth to one sixtieth; four boat steerers, each about one eightieth; "green hands," or those "before the mast," not far from one hundred and seventy-fifth lay.