The difference between this adventurous and romantic calling and the modern whaleship is precisely the difference between pig-sticking as practised by army officers in India and the stock-yards of Chicago and Argentina. Making all allowance for the New Englander’s passion for gain, there had to be some sporting instinct to send men out on “lays” instead of wages, and to make them follow, year after year, so dangerous a trade. It was only when another sporting chance came along, the chance of the golden west, of striking further and further beyond the ranges, that the New Englanders abandoned the whaling to foreigners. The interest our antiquarians have in whaling is therefore a sound one. It was a manifestation of the pioneer mentality; and when that mentality was directed into other channels, whaling lost prestige and became as prosaic as cod-fishing in modern times. It might be mentioned here that the two instincts of civilized man--to make a sport of his necessities, and then by quantity production in factories to divorce all sport from his necessities--have been spectacularly illustrated in the evolution of whaling from a sport for heroes into a humdrum manifestation of big business. Efficiency has never been so swiftly or so deplorably justified. At one end of the scale we have Captain Ahab devoting all his life to the pursuit of a mythological cetacean, the White Whale. At the other, in 1932, we have British and Scandinavian whaling factories, twin screw, oil-burning vessels of 14,000 tons, capable of pursuing whales of all species in high speed motor whaleboats fitted with guns and bombs, with air pumps which inflate the dead whale so that it will float until needed. These ships have a specially designed stern slipway, up which the entire carcase of a 100 ton whale can be hauled from the water to the blubber deck. When the blubber has been removed the carcase is sawn by machinery into sections and lowered to the meat deck. Nothing of the animal is wasted. A packing factory on board cans and packs the products ready for discharging at a convenient port into freight steamers. Fuel-oil and water, which is distilled on board, supplies a whole fleet of auxiliary whaling vessels. Here we behold the modern commercial and mechanical genius at its peak. It is so efficient that unless some legislative action is taken, whales will become extinct. In two years these vessels have obtained more oil and have killed more whales than the old American whalers took from the sea in half a century.