WHALE OIL. This most valuable and important of all liquid animal oils, is obtained principally from two species of whale—the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale. The former or Cacholot, known' also as the spermaceti whale, is said to inhabit nearly all seas and has a wide geographical range, It visits European shores, sometimes enters the Mediterranean and occa sionally the coasts of Britain. It varies from 60 to 70 feet in length and will yield from 6000 to 7000 gallons of oil, the finest of which is taken from the great reservoir on the head which is considered superior in quality to others, and classified as sperm oil. The Right Whale, or Greenhnd Whale, yields however, the largest proportion of whale oil, which is usually designated as train oil. This term is supposed to be a corruption of drain from the fact of the oil being drained out of the blubber. The method of procur ing the oil may be thus described. After the whale has been har pooned, lanced and killed, it is towed by boats to the ship and made fast to the ship's chains. The process of Ails/nu, or cutting up the is then commenced by some of the crew who, pro vided with iron spikes in their boots to prevent slipping, descend upon the carcass and cut into the blubber with blabber spades, re moving the blanket of skin, a broad strip about 30 feet long which is hoisted on to the ship's deck. Huge cubical pieces are then cut
out of the blubber of half a ton or a ton weight and also placed on deck, the process being continued until the entire mass of blubber amounting to 20 or 30 tons is removed. In the mean while, others of the crew have explored the whale's mouth and secured the baleen or whalebone. The rest of the carcass is then flung adrift, while the blubber being cut up into small cubical pieces has the cellular tissue separated from it by heating the blubber in a large pot and then straining it, the scraps of one pot serving as fuel for another and so on until the product is finally stored in casks to be brought home and boiled for oil. It is esti mated that a ton of blubber will yield 200 gallons of oil, while a single whale will often yield the value of about $4000 worth of blubber and whalebone.