TRYING OUT
Day and night the try works were kept going, until all the blubber had been rendered.
Dense black smoke by day, and illuminated sails and rigging at night disclosed to passing ships the proximity of a whaler. Merchant sailors claimed they could smell a “spouter” over the horizon.
The furnace contained two large iron kettles similar to that in the foreground of the sketch. Beneath each of these was a separate fire grate, and under all—a shallow pan of water as safeguard.
The minced blubber was tried out in these kettles, and when the book pieces had given up their oil they were used as fuel. Enough of this “crackling” was kept to start the fires for the next whale.
As the oil filled the kettles, it was bailed off into a copper cooling tank—then to casks on deck where it cooled thoroughly for a day or two before being stowed away in the hold.