Bottle of whale oil

Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Whale oil was sometimes known as train oil, which comes from the Dutch word traan ("tear" or "drop").

Sperm oil is a special kind of oil obtained from the head cavities of sperm whales. It is chemically different from ordinary whale oil, being mostly liquid wax. It had different properties and applications than regular whale oil, and was more expensive.

Whale oil was widely used in oil lamps and to make soap and margarine. With the discovery of substitutes such as kerosene and vegetable oils, the use of whale oils declined considerably. With most countries having banned whaling, the sale and use of whale oil today is almost non-existent.

Manufacture [edit]

Whale oil was obtained by boiling strips of blubber harvested from whales.^[1] This process was called "trying out". The boiling was carried out on land in the case of whales caught close to shore or beached. On longer deep-sea whaling expeditions, the trying-out was carried out on the ship itself so that the waste carcass could be thrown away to make room for the next catch.

Baleen whales were generally the main source of whale oil. The oil of baleen whales is exclusively composed of triglycerides, whereas that of toothed whales contain a lot of wax esters.^[2] The bowhead whale and right whale were considered the ideal whaling targets. They are slow, docile, and float when slain. They yield plenty of high-quality oil and whalebone.^[3] They were hunted to near extinction.

Chemistry [edit]

Whale oil has low viscosity (lower than olive oil),^[4] 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 and the refinement it went through. It has a strong fishy odor. When hydrogenated, it turns solid and white, and loses its unpleasant taste and odor.^[5][6]

The composition of whale oil varies with the species from which it was sourced and the method by which it was harvested and processed. Whale oil is mainly composed of triglycerides^[7] (molecules of fatty acids attached to a glycerol molecule). Oil sourced from toothed whales will contain a substantial amount of wax esters (especially the oil of sperm whales).^[2] Most of the fatty acids are unsaturated. The most common fatty acids are oleic acids and its isomers (18:1 carbon chains).^[8]

Whale oil is exceptionally stable.^[9]

Applications [edit]

American whale oil and sperm oil imports in the 19th century.

The use of whale oil saw a steady decline starting in the late 19th century due to the development of superior alternatives and, later, the passing of environmental laws. In 1986, the International Whaling Commission declared a moratorium on commercial whaling, which has all but halted the use of whale oil today. The Inuits of North America are granted special whaling rights (justified as being integral to their culture), and they still use whale oil as a food and as lamp oil.^[13]

Whale oil was used as a cheap illuminant, though it gave off a strong odor when burnt and was not very popular.^[14] It was replaced in the late 19th century by cheaper, more efficient and longer lasting kerosene.^[15]

In the US, whale oil was used in cars as an automatic transmission fluid until it was banned by the Endangered Species Act.^[16]

After the invention of hydrogenation in the early 20th century, whale oil was used to make margarine,^[5] a practice that is no longer used. Whale oil in margarine has been replaced by vegetable oil.^[17]

Whale oil was used to make soap. Until the invention of hydrogenation in the early 20th century, it was only used in industrial-grade cleansers because its foul smell and tendency to discolor made it unsuitable for cosmetic soap.^[6]

Gallery [edit]

• 

  Whalers stripping blubber from a slain whale.

• 

  Whalers boiling blubber on the deck of their ship (1874 illustration).

• 

  Try-pots in Ilulissat, Greenland.

• 

  Maoris cutting up the blubber of beached pilot whales (New Zealand, 1911).

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  Maoris boiling the blubber to extract oil (New Zealand, 1911).

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  An Inuit woman lighting a qulliq, a traditional whale oil lamp (Nunavut, 1999).

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  Bottles of hydrogenated whale oil, raw materials for soap and margarine.

In literature and memoirs [edit]

The pursuit and use of whale oil, along with many other aspects of whaling, are discussed in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. In the novel, the preciousness of the substance to contemporary American society is emphasized when the fictional narrator notes that whale oil is "as rare as the milk of queens." 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.

Friedrich Ratzel in The History of Mankind (1896),^[18] when discussing food materials in Oceania, quoted James Cook's comment in relation to "the Maoris" saying "No Greenlander was ever so sharp set upon train-oil as our friends here, they greedily swallowed the stinking droppings when we were boiling down the fat of dog-fish."

See also [edit]

• Oleochemical
• Sperm whaling
• Whaling

References [edit]

Further reading [edit]

• Whale oil and its uses, an overview with illustrations
• Knapp, Friedrich Ludwig; Dibdin, William Joseph (1895), "Whale oil - Train oil", Chemical technology: or, Chemistry in its applications to arts and manufactures, II, Lighting, London: J & A Churchill, pp. 43–44, OCLC 3592958 
• Stevenson, C H; United States Fish Commission (1903), "Conversion of blubber into whale oil, Refining sperm oil and whale oil", Aquatic products in arts and industries: Fish oils, fats, and waxes, fertilizers from aquatic products. U.S. Fish Commission Report, 1902, Washington, DC: GPO, pp. 193–204, OCLC 21059426 , Includes descriptions, photographs and statistics.
• Tower, Walter Sheldon (1907), A history of the American whale fishery, Series in political economy and public law, no. 20, Philadelphia: Published for the University, pp. 94–95, ISBN 1-116-72422-7, OCLC 145429333 
• How Capitalism Saved the Whales, by James S. Robbins
• Coleman, Jr, James L (1995), "The American Whale Oil Industry: A Look Back at the Future of the American Petroleum Industry", Natural Resources Research 4 (no. 3)