Identifier: youngnimrodsinno00knox (find matches)
Title: The young Nimrods in North America : a book for boys
Year: 1881 (1880s)
Authors: Knox, Thomas Wallace, 1835-1896
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Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers

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k. There are always plenty of these thieves about ready to feed onthe whale as soon as his jacket is off, and sometimes they dont wait forthat before they begin. The man removes his boots before going down,and has nothing on his feet but a pair of very thick woollen stockings.With his boots he could not hold on a moment, but the stockings catchon the skin of the whale, and enable him to cling there. All hands are hold of the tackle-rope; and when the spades have cutthe strip and fairly started it, the order is given to haul away. The greatblock goes upward, the spades keep on cutting, and in a few minutes thestrip, or blanket, as it is called, has gone toward the sky till it is, two-thirds the height of the main-mast. Then the second tackle is fastened O in near the level of the deck, and when it is all secure the blanket is cutthrough above it, and swung in till it is over the hatch that leads to the O O blubber-room. Then the piece is lowered and dropped into the blubber-room, where
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•CUTTING IN A WHALE. a man stows it away, and makes the pieces fit as closely as he can. Bythe time the second tackle is up the first is ready to relieve it, and so they 296 THE YOUNG NIMRODS. go on till the whole covering of the whale has been stripped off from hiseye to his tail. The cut is made in a spiral form, and the body of thewhale turns over and over as the blanket is unrolled. If it is a sperm-whale, the head is detached and secured, as it contains a very large amountof the finest oil. The boys opened their eyes in astonishment when the captain toldthem that the oil from the head of a sperm-whale was dipped out witha bucket, and sometimes amounted to twenty barrels or more. Did you say twenty barrels?1 Harry asked, as if he could hardlybelieve his ears. Yes, was the reply, twenty barrels and more. I have known thehead of a sperm-whale to yield twenty-three barrels of spermaceti, themost valuable oil that the whale produces; and I have heard of one thatgave twenty-seven bar

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