disappear during summer, but return in the autumn, when the “fall-fishing” is carried on in the neighbourhood of Point Barrow; and between the seasons it was customary for the vessels to go south for sperm-whaling. The Bering Strait fishery was begun in 1848, and in the three following years 250 ships obtained cargoes. In 1871 no less than 34 vessels were abandoned in the ice off Cape Belcher, the crews making good their escape to other vessels; while again in 1876 a dozen vessels experienced a similar fate.
The sperm-whale fishery, of which the products are spermaceti, sperm-oil, ambergris (mostly found floating in masses in the sea) and teeth, appears to have been initiated by the Americans in 1690, who for a considerable period found sufficient occupation in the neighbourhood of their own coasts. The British are, however, stated to have opened up the great whaling-grounds of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, although they did not embark on sperm-whaling till 1775. Within less than twenty years from that date their trade had, however, attained its maximum; no less than 75 British vessels, all from the port of London, being engaged in this industry in the year 1791. After this there was a steady decline till 1830, when only 31 vessels were thus employed; and since 1853 sperm-whaling has ceased to be a British industry.
As regards the American fishery, the island of Nantucket embarked in this trade about the year 1712, and by 1774 there were 360 American ships engaged in sperm-whaling, while in 1846, when the fishery was about at its zenith, the number was 735, mostly from New Bedford. Between 1877 and 1886 the average number of vessels had sunk to 159. New Bedford, on the Atlantic, and San Francisco, on the Pacific side, are the two great whaling centres; and during the period last mentioned the average imports of whaling products into the United States totalled 5304 tons of sperm-oil, together with 4863 tons of whale-oil and 143 tons of whalebone.
During the first half of the last century the colony of New South Wales was busily engaged in this trade, and in 1835 exported 2989 tons of sperm-oil.
Since the year 1882, when no less than 203 head were taken by the Peterhead whaler “Eclipse,” the Norwegians have carried on a fishery for the bottle-nosed whale (Hyperoodon rostratus), a species which although greatly inferior in point of size, yields an oil closely akin to sperm-oil, but possessed of even greater lubricating power. An average male bottle-nose will yield about 22 cwts. of oil containing 5% of pure spermaceti. Bottle-nose fishing is chiefly carried on in the neighbourhood of Jan Mayen and Iceland during the months of May, June and July, the whales usually disappearing quite suddenly about the middle of the last-mentioned month. In 1903 about 1600 tons of this oil came on the market, which would imply the destruction of nearly 2000 whales.
The invention by Svend Foyn of the explosive harpoon, already referred to, inaugurated about the year 1866 the Norwegian fin-whale fishery, an industry which has since been taken up by other nationalities. The rorquals or fin-whales (Balaenoptera), which include the largest of all cetaceans, are built for speed, and are much fiercer animals than either the Greenland or the Atlantic right whale; their rush when wounded being of enormous velocity, while their vitality is such that attacking them in the old-fashioned way with the hand-harpoon is practically useless, and at the same time fraught with great danger to the pursuers. To a considerable extent the same may be affirmed of the humpbacked whale (Megaptera). Under these circumstances, previous to the invention of the bomb-harpoon, these whales were left entirely alone by the whalers.
By the year 1885 the Norwegians had a fleet of over 30 vessels engaged in this fishery off the coast of Finmark, the amount of whose catch comprised 1398 whales in 1885, and 954 in the following year. Gradually the Norwegians have developed and extended the rorqual-fishery, and they now possess stations in Iceland, the Faroes and Shetlands, and also at Buneveneader in Harris in the Hebrides. In the Shetlands there are two stations at the head of Ronas Voe on the north-west side of the mainland where operations are carried on from May and June till September, when the whales leave the shore. During the first season (1903) the Norrona Whaling Company's vessels killed 64 whales, while 62 were accounted for by the Shetland Whaling Company.
In 1898 a successful rorqual-fishery was established by the Newfoundland Steam Whaling Company at Rose-au-Rue, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. Four species of rorquals as well as humpbacks are hunted; and during a portion of the season in 1903 the catch included 174 of the former and 14 of the latter.
In addition to the above-mentioned fisheries for the larger whales, there are considerable local captures of the smaller kinds, commonly known as grampuses or killers, porpoises, and dolphins. Of these, however, very brief mention must suffice. The most important captures are generally made in northern seas. The black pilot-whale, or grindhval (Globicephalus melas), is, for instance, not infrequently taken in large shoals by the Faroe islanders; these whales being driven by boats into the shallows, where they are sometimes slaughtered by hundreds. Much the same may be stated with regard to the grampus or killer (Orca gladiator), of which no less than 47 head were killed at once in January 1904 at Bildostrommen, Norway, Of even more importance is the white-whale or beluga (Delphinapterus leucas), which is hunted for its blubber, hide and flesh; the average yield per head being about 100 gallons of oil. In 1871 the Tromsoe whalers captured no less than 2167 individuals; while in 1898 300 out of a school of some 900 were captured on a single occasion at Point Barrow, Alaska. These whales, which are worth about £3 a head, yield the leather known commercially as “porpoise-hide.” The narwhal (Monodon mcnoceros), yielding both blubber and the valuable ivory tusks, is usually captured singly by the Greenlanders in their “kayaks.” Local porpoise and dolphin fisheries are carried on by the fishermen in many parts of the world, the natives of the Travancore coast being noted for their success in this respect; while even the fresh-water susu or Ganges dolphin (Platanista gangetica) and the Rio de la Plata dolphin (Pontoporia blainvillei) are also caught in considerable numbers for the sake of their blubber.
Literature.—The following books and papers may be consulted: T. Beale, The Natural History of the Sperm-Whale (London, 1837); W. S. Tower, A History of the American Whale Fishery (Philadelphia, 1907); J. R. Spears, Story of New England Whaling (New York, 1908); C. R. Markham, “On the Whale-Fishery of the Basque Provinces of Spain,” Proc. Zool. Soc. London (1881), p. 969; T. Southwell, “Notes on the Seal and Whale Fishery,” Zoologist (London, 1884-1907), and “On the Whale-Fishery from Scotland, with some account of the changes in that industry and of the species hunted,” Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist. (1904), p. 77; G. M. Allen, “Some Observations on Rorquals off Southern Newfoundland,” American Naturalist, xxxviii. 613 (1904); R. C. Haldane, “Whaling in Shetland, 1904,” Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist. (1905), p. 65, and “Whaling in Scotland,” t.c. (1907), p. 10; E. L. Bouvier, “Quelques impressions d'un naturalist au cours d'une campagne scientifique de S.A.S. le Prince de Monaco, 1905,” Bulletin de I'Institut Océanographique (Monaco, 1907), No. 93. (R. L.*)
WHALE-OIL, the oil obtained from the blubber of various species of the genus Balaena, as B. mysticetus, Greenland or " right” whale (northern whale-oil), B. australis (southern whale-oil), Balaenoptera longimana, Balaenoptera borealis (Finback oil, Finner whale-oil, Humpback oil). The “orca” or “killer” whale, and the “beluga” or white whale, also yield “whale-oils.” “Train-oil” proper is the northern whale-oil, but this term has been applied to all blubber oils, and in Germany, to all marine animal oils—fish-oils, liver oils, and blubber oils. The most important whale-oil is sperm or spermaceti oil, yielded by the sperm-whales.
Whale-oil varies in colour from a bright honey yellow to a dark brown, according to the condition of the blubber from which it has been extracted. At best it has a rank fishy odour, and the darker the colour the more disagreeable the smell. With lowering of the temperature stearin, accompanied with a small proportion of spermaceti, separates from the oil, and a little under the freezing point nearly the whole of these constituents may be crystallized out. When separated and pressed, this deposit is known as whale tallow, and the oil from which it is removed is distinguished as pressed whale-oil; this, owing to its limpidity, is sometimes passed as sperm-oil. Whale-oil is principally used in oiling wools for combing,
