He wheeled about, and went downstairs with loud angry steps.
There was a long silence in the room; and then Madge turned with pleading eyes to the dame.
‘He is very angry with me, aunt,’ she faltered.
‘I am sorry that I cannot say he is wrong, child,’ was the gentle, but reproachful answer.
THE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS OF THE WHALE.
Whales are more numerous than is usually supposed—that is to say, there is a greater variety of these giants of the deep than the two or three which are known to commerce; such animals being abundant in all seas, so far as they have been explored. It is not, however, our intention to enter into the natural history of these cetaceans farther than may be necessary to understand their commercial value. Nor do we intend to dwell on the dangers which are incidental to the pursuit of the whale, of which it would not be difficult to compile a melancholy catalogue. Terrible shipwrecks, vessels ‘crunched’ by the power of the ice without a moment’s warning, others run into and destroyed by the animal itself; pitiful boat-voyages, so prolonged as to cause deaths from hunger and thirst; ships ingulfed amid the roar of the tempest, and crews never heard of since the day they sailed—these are among the incidents which have from its beginning marked the progress of the whale-fishery; the mortality connected with which has often attracted attention, not only in the icy regions of the arctic seas, but also in those of the Pacific Ocean, in which, all the year round, men pursue the sperm-whale with unceasing activity, at a risk to life and limb only faintly realised by landsmen.
It is ‘for gold the merchant ploughs the main;’ and there are persons who say that the risks encountered by whale-ships are not greater than those common to most branches of the mercantile marine. ‘And if it pays,’ say the advocates of whaling, ‘why not carry on the enterprise?’ But no matter what defence may be offered, whale-fishing has always been much of a lottery, in which the few have drawn prizes, whilst the many have had to be content with the blanks.
The fortunes of ‘whaling’ are exceedingly varied: one ship may capture ten or twelve fish;[1] some vessels occasionally come home ‘clean;’ while others may each secure from two to half a dozen. We have before us several records of the financial results of whale-fishing, in which the profits and losses among Pacific whalers exhibit some striking differences. One ship, for instance, places at her credit during her voyage one hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars; but to the owners of the fleet of whalers fishing from New Bedford, United States, in 1858, there accrued a loss of more than a million dollars. Again, a Scottish whale-ship from Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire, was one season fortunate enough to capture forty-four whales, the largest number ever ‘fished’ by one vessel. The value of the cargo in oil and bone considerably exceeded ten thousand pounds sterling. One of the largest cargoes ever landed was brought home by the steamer Arctic of Dundee, commanded by Captain Adams, one of the ablest arctic navigators. It consisted of the produce of thirty-seven whales, which, besides oil, included almost eighteen tons of whalebone.
The only whales of commerce were at one time the great sperm-whale of southern latitudes, and ‘the right’ or Greenland whale, both of which are animals of gigantic size and great power, the latter being undoubtedly the larger. No British vessels take part in the sperm-fishery, their operations being confined to the arctic regions. Dundee is now the chief whaling port, sending out annually sixteen ships to Greenland. The Greenland whale, which our British whalemen endure such dangers to procure, seldom exceeds sixty feet in length, and is about half that number in circumference. An average-sized specimen will weigh some seventy tons or more, and forms a mass of matter equal to about two hundred fat oxen. One individual caught by a Scotch whaler was seventy-two feet in length, with a girth of forty-five feet, the total weight being reckoned at upwards of one hundred tons. The chief product of the sperm and ‘the right’ whale—their oil—is of course common to both animals, and is obtained by boiling their fat, or ‘blubber’ as the substance is technically called.
It is somewhat curious that in both of these whales the head is the portion, size being considered, which is the most valuable. In the sperm-whale, ‘the case,’ situated in the head, is filled with a substance which is known as spermaceti, and brings a high price. One of these giants of the deep will sometimes yield a ton of this valuable substance, which is found, when the whale is killed, as an oily fluid, that when prepared, gradually concretes into a granulated mass. In the Greenland whale the great prize is ‘the bone’ with which its head is furnished, and which at the present time is quoted as being of the enormous value of two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds per ton! The price in America is even higher, the last sales in that country bringing two thousand five hundred pounds. It is only the Greenland fish which yield this valuable commodity. The whale of the Pacific is furnished with teeth; but ‘the right’ whale has in lieu thereof a series of plates, or laminæ, on the upper jaw, which are in reality the whalebone of commerce. The uses to which ‘bone’ is applied vary according to the demands of fashion, so that within the last hundred years the price has fluctuated exceedingly, and has been quoted from almost a nominal price per ton up to the sum mentioned. At one period, we are told in an American account of the fishery, the rates for whalebone were so low that few whalemen would bring any of it home, their space being of much greater value when packed with oil. Threepence a pound-weight was at one time all that could be obtained for it; now the price of bone is twenty shillings per pound-weight. It may be explained that the yield of bone is as eight or ten pounds to each barrel of oil. A vessel which brings home one hundred tuns of oil will, in all probability, have on board six tons of whalebone.