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Quote by Eric Jay Dolin

“American whale oil lit the world. It was used in the production of soap, textiles, leather, paints, and varnishes, and it lubricated the tools and machines that drove the Industrial Revolution. The baleen cut from the mouths of whales shaped the course of feminine fashion by putting the hoop in hooped skirts and giving form to stomachtightening and chest-crushing corsets. Spermaceti, the waxy substance from the heads of sperm whales, produced the brightest- and cleanest-burning candles the world has ever known, while ambergris, a byproduct of irritation in a sperm whale’s bowel, gave perfumes great staying power and was worth its weight in gold.”

Quote by Eric Jay Dolin

Book:Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America
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Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America

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Eric Jay Dolin

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ReligionWhalingThe Captain Of The Polestar
Author:Arthur Conan Doyle
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“Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm, and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when--There she blows!--the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again.”

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Book:Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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“Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there.' For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand. Going forward and glancing over the weather-bow, I perceived that the ship, swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing toward the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I could see. 'Well, what's the report?' said Peleg when I came back; 'what did ye see?' 'Not much,' I replied - 'nothing but water; considerable horizon though, and there s a squall coming up, I think.' 'Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where you stand?”

HumorThe WorldWhalingThe Ocean
Book:Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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“His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knotholes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale's eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.”

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Book:moby dick, or, the whale kindle - Annotated : "Moby Dick, or, The Whale Kindle: Navigating Obsession and Nature's Majesty in Herman Melville's Epic Tale."
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“There is a blackout in media coverage of issues concerning whales and dolphins in Japan, with the exception of the government's viewpoint. It is simply amazing how little good information (and how much bad information) the public in Japan gets about the worldwide controversy over whaling and dolphin killing, all because the media bows to the wishes of the Japan Fisheries Agency.”

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Book:Behind the Dolphin smile: One Man's Campaign to Protect the World's Dolphins
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“So what drew them to whaling? Some might have been lured by what Baudelaire called the ‘profound and mysterious charm that arises from looking at a ship’; others, as Elizabeth Hardwick noted in her biography of Melville, ‘have come sulking away, address unknown, from howling creditors, accusing wives, alert policemen, beggary on shore’. Many greenhands were from farming families, some awaiting their inheritance, others, as younger sons, unlikely to come into anything. Runaway slaves were not uncommon aboard Yankee whalers: Nantucket’s Quaker population helped to secure berths for those in danger of being recaptured by bounty hunters.”

HuntingWhalesWhaling
Book:Whale
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“The greenhands, by necessity, were taught the ropes at sea. The captain distributed them among the boats, so as not to slow its progress when they inevitably caught a crab with their oars, breaking the rhythm of the boat. From the stern, the mate called out ‘Break your backs!’ as each took an oar. It was best to be quick, for the ‘iron-fisted and iron-hearted officers’ often ‘beat their information in with anything that came to hand’.”

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Book:Whale
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