“ Also the rise of the cotton industry from about 1850 to 1875 in New Bedford drew a great deal of capital from the uncertain whale fishery to the more conservative investments in cotton mills, which were successful from the very start. As whaling died out the mills were built up, and it is owing to these same mills that the city was saved from becoming a deserted fishing village. Then later even the lubricating oils began to be made from the residuum of kerosene, and about the same time wax was invented for candles, which again robbed the whaling industry of another market for oil. ”

“ In modern whaling the flesh is made into guano and the bones and blood into fertilizer, and even the water in which the blubber has been “tried out” is used in making glue. The meat is to-day sold to Japan, and, if the weather is very cold and the supply of fish is limited, a whale might bring there as much as four thousand dollars by utilizing all the by-products as well as the meat, which is sometimes canned. In America a whale is now valued at about two hundred dollars, but, if the entire carcass is utilized, it might bring one thousand dollars. ”

“ Whaling continued to increase, and the sterile island was turned into a prosperous community, when the Revolution came on, and for the time being practically put an end to the industry. Nantucket was the only port that carried on whaling during the war: the island simply had to whale or starve, as the inhabitants knew no other occupation. Most of their vessels were eventually captured or lost by shipwreck, and over twelve hundred of their men were either killed or made prisoners. The end of the war found the island’s business hopelessly wrecked ”

“ A New London ship was once holding a reception on board for some natives, and each of the crew was endeavoring in some way to amuse the guests. One seaman took out his set of false teeth, thinking he would provide entertainment; but instead the natives became so alarmed that they tumbled over the side into their canoes and made their retreat as quickly as possible. The crew was asked on shore for a return visit; but an invitation to the exhibitor of the teeth was not forthcoming, and he was obliged to remain alone on the ship, much to his disappointment. ”

“ Whaling will doubtless be carried on from San Francisco in a small way as long as there is any demand for whalebone, and from New Bedford and Provincetown while there is any market for sperm and63 whale oil. Most of the Pacific steam whalers are now provided with a harpoon gun invented by Svend Foyn, a Norwegian. This gun is placed in the bow, and to the harpoon is attached a rope with which to play the whale, as one does a fish with a rod and reel, but there is little romance in this method of whaling. ”

“ There have been races almost as exciting as a Harvard-Yale race when the boats of different nations have been dashing for a whale, which is prized at between three thousand and four thousand dollars. Many years ago an English, a French, a Dutch, and an American ship lay becalmed in the Pacific, when suddenly a whale was “raised.” All four ships lowered and raced across the waters, with the American in the rear. In a few minutes the Yankee passed the Dutchman, who yelled “donner und blitzen!” ”

“ It is a superstition among some whalemen that a ship which for once has a sperm whale’s head on her starboard quarter, and a right whale’s on her port side, will never afterwards capsize.
THE PERILS OF WHALING
Whalemen not only had to undergo the perils of the sea, but in addition ran the danger of being killed by the whale and of being attacked by savages at the ports where it was often necessary to land for food and water. Also in cases of accident the whaleship was usually off the regular cruise followed by the merchantmen and therefore less likely to be assisted by other vessels. ”

“ A young man who had not doubled the cape or harpooned a whale had no chance of winning a Nantucket, New Bedford, or New London belle, and it is stated as a fact that the girls of Nantucket at one time formed a secret society, and one of their pledges was never to marry17 a man until he had “struck his whale.” The well-known Nantucket novel “Miriam Coffin” tells of a girl who made to her two lovers a condition of marriage that they must first of all undertake a whaling voyage, and that she would wed the more successful of the two. ”

“ One of these giants, when first struck by a harpoon, can go as fast as a steam yacht, twenty or twenty-five miles an hour, but it soon slows down to its usual speed of about twelve miles, developing about one hundred and forty-five horse-power.
Mr. Roy C. Andrews, of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, was on a whaler ninety feet long, which struck a finback whale, and he says that for seven hours the whale towed the vessel, with engines going at full speed astern, almost as though it had been a rowboat. ”

“ The history of American whaling really begins with the settlement of the New England Colonies. When the “Mayflower” anchored inside of Cape Cod, the Pilgrims saw whales playing about the ship, and this was their chief reason for settling there. It afterwards proved that the products of the whale formed an important source of income to the settlers on Massachusetts Bay. ”

“ From the time of the settlement of the island, the entire population, from the oldest inhabitant down to the youngest child, realized that on the whaling industry depended their livelihood. A story is told of a Nantucket youngster who tied his mother’s darning cotton to a fork, and, hurling it at the cat as she tried to escape, yelled “Pay out, mother! Pay out! There she ‘sounds’ through the window!” The inhabitants always alluded to a train as “tying up,” a wagon was called a “side-wheeler,” every one you met was addressed as “captain,” and a horse was always “tackled” instead of harnessed. ”

“ If a whaleboat were upset, and it was seen that the crew had something to hold on to in order to prevent going under, it was often a long time before the other boats rendered assistance, it being a truism among whalemen that whales were of much higher commercial value than men.
Captain Hosmer, of the bark “Janet” of Westport (near New Bedford) , met with a horrible experience off the coast of Peru in 1849. He had just secured a whale, and in towing it back to his ship his boat was capsized. ”

“ The success of the settlers on Cape Cod and elsewhere encouraged Salem to consider ways and means of whaling; for as early as 1688 one James Loper, of Salem, petitioned the Colonial authorities for a patent for making oil, and four years later some Salem whalers complained that Easthamptonites had stolen whales that bore Salem harpoons. As early as 1647 whaling had become a recognized industry in Hartford, Conn., but for some reason did not prosper.
The first white people to explore our New England coasts discovered that the Indians were ahead of them in the pursuit of the whale. ”

“ The tongue of a right whale is equal in weight to ten oxen, while the eye of all whales is hardly as large as a cow’s, and is placed so far back that it has in direction but a limited range of vision. The ear is so small that it is difficult to insert a knitting needle, and the brain is only about ten inches square. The head, or “case,” contains about five hundred barrels, of ten gallons each, of the richest kind of oil, called spermaceti. ”

“ Ambergris, the rarest and most valuable of all the products, is a secretion from the intestines of the sperm whale and results from a disease. It is a very rare article and is worth almost its weight in gold, selling usually at $300 a pound. Its chief use is in the preparation of fine perfumeries. It is believed that the largest amount taken by one ship was brought back by the “Watchman” of Nantucket, which vessel found eight hundred pounds in 1858. Small amounts were sold every year in New Bedford even up to the year 1913. ”

“ The first man to “raise oil”—an expression which means the first to see a whale—usually received a plug of tobacco or some other prize, and this made the lookouts more keen.
In “Moby Dick” Melville says that the crew pulls to the refrain “A Dead Whale or a Stove Boat,” which became such well-known by-words among whalemen that when Mr. W. W. Crapo last year presented to New Bedford “The Whaleman” statue, they were inscribed upon it. When rowing in a rough sea the captain cautioned the men to trim the boat and not to “shift their tobacco.” ”

“ Soon came the Civil War, in which many vessels were captured or destroyed, then followed the sinking of forty or more vessels of the Charleston Stone Fleet described elsewhere, and finally came the Arctic disasters of 1871 and 1876, all of which hastened the end of the industry.
Whale-meat in Japan awaiting shipment to market. It is sold to the poorer classes in all the large towns at prices which range from 7 to 8 cents a pound. One whale yields as much meat as a herd of 100 cattle. ”

“ Since 1895 Boston, New Bedford, Provincetown, and San Francisco have been the only places from which whalers have been regularly registered, and in 1903 Boston recorded her last whaleship.
A modern steam whaler in the act of shooting a harpoon gun.
The modern harpoon gun, showing line with which to hold the whale.
There are a number of reasons for the decline of the whale fishery, but the chief factor was undoubtedly the introduction of kerosene. The opening of the first oil well in Pennsylvania sealed the fate of whaling. ”

“ The ship “Syren” was attacked by a horde of murderous savages, and the crew of the ship would, doubtless, have been murdered had it not been for a quick stratagem of the mate. He remembered a package of tacks in the cabin and yelled, “Break out the carpet tacks and sow ’em over the deck.” The natives, yelling with pain, jumped headlong into the sea, and the ship was saved.
The Japanese method of capturing whales was to entangle them in nets. A great many boatloads of men would drive the whale toward the nets by throwing bricks and stones at it. ”

“ Few people have any idea of the relative size of the whale compared with other animals. A large specimen weighs about ninety tons, or thirty times as much as an elephant, which beside a whale appears about as large as a dog compared to an elephant. It is equivalent in bulk to one hundred oxen, and outweighs a village of one thousand people. If cut into steaks and eaten, as in Japan, it would supply a meal to an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men. ”

“ It must have been very crowded, as each ship had to stow away several hundred persons in addition to her own crew. There were many sad hearts as they left their vessels and almost all of their belongings, and started off in the small boats. The trip to sea and the trans-shipment in the heavy swell must have been made with the utmost care, otherwise many lives would have been sacrificed. The loss to the New Bedford owners was so tremendous that they never really recovered from the catastrophe, and many families had to economize for years after. ”

“ In order to attract the squid, or cuttle-fish, which is often lured by a shiny object from the dark recesses in the great depths of the ocean, the jaw and inner side of the Brobdingnagian mouth are lined with a silvery membrane of phosphorescent whiteness, which is probably the only thing the squid sees when the dark body of the whale is at the great depths to which it sometimes descends for food. ”

“ It is estimated that about the year 1848 there were over seventy millions invested in the industry and seventy thousand persons derived from it their subsistence.
It is an interesting fact that the insurance on American whalemen was about one-half the rate that was charged the Englishman, which certainly showed the superiority of our Yankee seamen. There were several whaling insurance companies in New Bedford. There is a story told of a New Bedford ship owner who had just heard that his vessel had gone down and he hadn’t yet received the insurance policy from the company. ”

“ Waymouth’s Journal of his voyage to America in 1605 gives the first description of the Indian method of whaling in canoes on the New England coast from November to April, when spouters generally abounded there. “One especial thing is their manner of killing the whale” runs the quaint description “which they call a powdawe; and will describe his form; how he bloweth up the water; and that he is twelve fathoms long: that they go in company of their king with a multitude of their boats ”

“ The first reference to English whaling appears during the fourteenth century, and by statutory law the whale was declared “a royal fish.” Another curious law was that the King, as Honorary Harpooner, received the head, and the Queen the tail of all whales captured along the English coast, which is very much like halving an apple, there is so little left.
From an old English print.
A rare old English print of the Eighteenth Century.
A “cachalot” on the seacoast of Holland. People have always shown intense interest in drift whales. ”