Identifier: arcticwhalemanor00hol (find matches)
Title: The Arctic whaleman; or, Winter in the Arctic Ocean: being a narrative of the wreck of the whale ship Citizen ..
Year: 1857 (1850s)
Authors: Holmes, Lewis
Subjects: Citizen (Ship : 1843-1849) Whaling Shipwrecks
Publisher: Boston, Wentworth
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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lue of Oils and Bone.— Value of several Classes of Whaling Vessels.— Lay. — BoatsCrew. — Whaleboats. — Approaching a Whale. — Harpooning. — WhaleWarp. — Danger when the Line runs out. — Locomotive Power of theWhale. — Lancing. — Flurry. — Cutting in. — Boiling out. — The Caseand Junk. — The Rapidity with which Oil may be taken. The voyages of all classes of whalemen are much longer andmore tedious now than formerly. Whales are more scarce,more easily frightened; they change their grounds or hauntsoftener; and besides, the number of vessels engaged in theircapture, in all seas, is largely increased, compared with thenumber twenty years since, or even later. More capital is now employed in this enterprise than ever be-fore ; and, were it not for the greatly advanced prices of oilsand bone beyond what they were a few years ago, — takinginto account the scarcity of whales, the long time occupied ona voyage, the augmented expense of fitting out ships, in the
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HISTORY AND DETAILS OP WHALING. 271 high prices of provisions and other incidentals, — the enterprisecould hardly be sustained a single year ; and certainly but afew years. Immense losses would pervade all departments ofthis wide-spread system of commercial operation. A few years since, the price of sperm oil by the quantity wasonly fifty to seventy-five cents per gallon ; but now it brings onedollar and forty cents per gallon by the cargo. Right whale oil was formerly sold as low as twenty-five centsper gallon by the cargo ; but now it brings in the market seven-ty and eighty cents per gallon by the quantity. Whalebone, which formerly was sold as low as six cents perpound, — and almost a drug at that, — in consequence of the in-creased demand for it, and the various and extraordinary usesto which it is applied, now readily commands eighty cents perpound. Thus a cargo of three thousand barrels of sperm oil, at the pres-ent market value of the article, will amount to more than on

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