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The following year, the US Congress amended the Endangered Species Act, outlawing the killing of whales and the use of their oil. [25] The loss of sperm oil had a profound impact in the automotive industry, [26] where for example, transmission failures rose from under 1 million in 1972 to over 8 million by 1975. [25] Sperm oil was a popular ...
A bottle of whale oil. Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. [1] Oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train-oil, which comes from the Dutch word traan ("tear drop"). Sperm oil, a special kind of oil obtained from the head cavities of sperm whales, differs chemically from ordinary whale oil: it is composed mostly of ...
Cosmetics, soap and machine oil formed the major uses of sperm whale products during this time. Sperm whale oil was still in use in automobile transmission cooling units in the United States in the 1970s. [23] In modern whaling, after the oil had been extracted the meat was usually ground down into a meal for feeding livestock.
To the left, the black-hulled whaling ships. To the right, the red-hulled whale-watching ship. Iceland, 2011. Number of whales killed since 1900. Whaling is the hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution.
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 ...
Spermaceti oil came solely from the head-case of sperm whales. It was processed by pressing the material rather than "trying-out". It was more expensive than whale oil, and highly regarded for its use in illumination, by burning the oil on cloth wicks or by processing the material into spermaceti candles, which were expensive and prized for ...
The sperm whale was particularly prized for spermaceti, a dense waxy substance that burns with an exceedingly bright flame that is found in the spermaceti organ, located forward and above the skull. Hunting sperm required longer whaling voyages. Whale oil was essential for illuminating homes and businesses in the 19th century, and lubricated ...
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