Spring Whale Oil. What remains after straining the first time, goes through the process of heating, cooling, and pressing, similar to spring sperm oil; and thus is obtained the spring whale oil.
That which is left after straining and pressing is called whale foots.
The following are a few of the uses to which whale foots are applied. In making an inferior kind of candles, in making some kinds of bar soap, and likewise used on railways and in ship yards.
The adamantine candles are made of spermaceti mixed with wax, in proportion of one ounce of wax to a pound of spermaceti, and subjected to powerful steam pressure. They are not only much harder than spermaceti candles, and variously colored, but they command a higher price in the market. There is a manufactory of this description in Philadelphia.
Oil soap is made from the deposit of alkali, in the process of bleaching. If, after pressing and bleaching, the oils should retain too dark a color, they are then bleached again. Some varieties of oil are darker than others, which requires additional labor in this respect.
There is another method, and usually the ordinary one, by which oils are clarified and prepared for the market. It is termed panning.
For this purpose, after it has been bleached, strained, or pressed, and it does not assume the right color or shade, it is pumped into large, leaded, superficial vats, or pans, located in a building near by, whose side roof is wholly of glass, like a glass house, and so arranged that both air and sun can act upon large bodies of oil in different stages of whitening.
This process not only whitens the oil, but whatever particles or thickness there may have been in the oil, not discernible before, is now all removed and deposited on the bottom of the pan. The oil taken from these pans is put into barrels or casks, and is ready for the market.
Government Test of Sperm Oil. The lighthouses upon our seaboard, and also upon the lakes, are furnished with the best quality of sperm oil.
Sperm oil has a standard weight established or recognized by the government, and according as varieties fall short or go beyond this measure, or standard, indicated by a nicely adjusted oilometer, its true weight and value are ascertained.