Everything about Whale Oil totally explained
Whale oil is the oil obtained from the
blubber of various species of
whales, particularly the three species of
Right Whale (Eubalaena japonica, E. glacialis, and E. australis) and the
Bowhead Whale (Balaena mysicetus) prior to the modern era, as well as several other species of baleen whale. Train oil proper is right whale oil, but this term has been applied to all blubber oils, and in
Germany, to all marine animal oils: fish oils, liver oils, and blubber oils. The most important whale oil was sperm or
spermaceti oil, yielded by
Sperm Whales.
Whale oil is chemically a liquid
wax and not a true oil. It flows readily, is clear, and varies in colour from a bright honey yellow to a dark brown, according to the condition of the blubber from which it has been extracted.
Stearin and
spermaceti may be separated from whale oil at low temperatures; at under 0°C these constituents may be almost completely crystallized and filtered out. When removed and pressed, this deposit is known as whale
tallow, and the oil from which it's removed is known as pressed whale oil; yet is sometimes passed as sperm oil.
The first principal use of whale oil was as an illuminant in
lamps and as candle wax. It was a major food of the
aboriginal peoples of the
Pacific northwest, such as the
Nootka. Whale oil later came to be used in oiling wools for combing and other uses. It was the first of any animal or mineral oil to achieve commercial viability. It was used to make
margarine.
However, with the 1986
International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, whale oil has all but ceased to be viable, as substitutes have been found for most of its uses, notably
jojoba oil.
In literature and memoirs
The pursuit and use of whale oil, along with many other
aspects of whaling, are discussed in
Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick.
John R. Jewitt, an Englishman who wrote a memoir about his years as a captive of the
Nootka people on the
Pacific Northwest Coast in 1802-1805, describes how what he calls train oil was used as a condiment with every dish, even strawberries.
Further Information
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