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Whale oil was the result of "trying-out" whale blubber by heating in water. It was a primary lubricant for machinery, whose expansion through the Industrial Revolution depended upon before the development of petroleum-based lubricants in the second half of the 19th century. Once the prized blubber and spermaceti had been extracted from the ...
Whale oil was widely used in the First World War as a preventive measure against trench foot. An infantry battalion of the British Army during World War I on the Western Front could be expected to use 10 imp gal (45 L; 12 US gal) of whale oil a day. The oil was rubbed directly onto bare feet in order to protect them from the effects of immersion.
America faced a shortage of oil – whale oil. Despite a steadily growing fleet of whaling ships, the American whaling industry could not satisfy the demand for lamp oil; the price had risen considerably, and the country imported increasing amounts of whale oil. Whale oil was needed as lamp oil for illumination.
New Bedford was once the city that lit the world, exporting vast quantities of whale oil for lamps in the early 1800s. Nearly two centuries later New Bedford aspires to light the world again, in a ...
By the end of the decade they were delivering large cargoes of whale oil to Bristol, London, and Flanders. A large market existed for "lumera", as whale oil used for lighting was called. "Sain" or "grasa de ballena" was also used (by mixing it with tar and oakum) for caulking ships, as well as in the textile industry. [13]
Basques and whaling have an intimate history; the first accounts of Basque whaling dates back to the 670s when the Basques of Labourd sold 40 jars of whale oil.Basques came to hunt whales especially, in the Bay of Biscay in the 16th century, using techniques learned from the Vikings and Normans who plundered the Basque country, formerly named Vasconia in 844.
Kerosene and natural gas soon replaced whale oil in North America. In New England, whaling reached its peak in 1857, then gradually began a period of decline. The situation was aggravated considerably by the American Civil War, as whaling vessels and crews were diverted to assist in blockading the Confederate coastal areas and ports. By 1900 ...
The earliest street lights in the colonial America were oil lamps burning whale oil from the Greenland or Arctic right whales of the North Atlantic, or from sperm whales of the South Atlantic, South Pacific, and beyond. [1] [3] Lamplighters were responsible for igniting the lamps and maintaining them. [3]