Show WHALES IN BEHRING SEA nearly all the he valuable va ble sea sa monsters ha left deft the no the valuable whales have about all disappeared from the north pacific behring anil and seas no longer contain them and the arctic ocean is the only recognized whaling ground left there Ther therease eare iru but fifty whalers chalers now afloat in the western ocean while a ai half a century aury ago there were six hundred such ships there are ten steam vessels in this fleet and the rest are described by harpers Ilar pers weel weekly ay as relies relics ancient barks and brigs that date from the lorig long ago are seldom insured ared sandwith and with difficulty secure crews the captain and crew go on shares or are paid a percentage of the seasons catch and six or eight whales will credit the former with four or five thousand dollars and the sailors with a couple of hundred dollars each for three seasons one of the whalers chalers has not t secured a single whale while one abrew c crew captured twenty one whales in the surn summer mier of 1891 in 1891 sitka sitha was surprised by the visit of a whaler the first in the many years since the fairweather grounds of mount st elias were abandoned this ship had sailed in march for that old ground but off prince william bound sound nine right whales were taken in in eight days and a tenth had been wounded when the bark grounded in a fog unshipped and broke the rudder it then worked its way to sitka and for a fortnight gave a new interest to the life of that quiet capital there had been time to clean and slightly deodorize the ship during 7 its sail into port and it fell disappoint disappointingly 1 angly short of the traditional whaler but it was interesting to visit it and have tile cheerful mate show pieces of whalebone six and seven feet in length stacked up like cord wood to see the boats harpoons knives and tackle and the huge vats in the brick furnace on deck de ek where the mountains of blubber ulber bl are tried out but the blubber and oil are little regarded in this day a as whalebone at six dollars a pound is the most valuable part of the monster catching Catchi rg their whales so fast this crew had not time to cut up one whale before another was sighted and the hold was filled with the lubber of the first whale while they v re busy harpooning and cutting the lone from the later catches they liaa only four hundred undred li and thirty barrels of oil and the tongue of one whale yielded thirteen of those barrels from nine whales there them came ten thousand pounds of bone |