Everything Was Once a Whale
Streetlights, margarine, explosives, perfume. Eight facts tracing what the world used before it found substitutes.
- For a century the streetlamps of European and American cities burned whale oil.
For a century the streetlamps of European and American cities burned whale oil. Lighthouses used it too, so the light warning ships off the rocks came out of the sea.
- The finest candles were pressed from spermaceti, the waxy oil filling a sperm whale's head.
The finest candles were pressed from spermaceti, the waxy oil filling a sperm whale's head. They burned so evenly that the standard unit of brightness was defined as the light of…
- As the nearby whales vanished, voyages stretched to four and five years.
As the nearby whales vanished, voyages stretched to four and five years. Ships left Massachusetts for the middle of the Pacific because there was nothing left worth hunting…
- What ended the slaughter was not conscience but price.
What ended the slaughter was not conscience but price. Kerosene distilled from petroleum was cheaper by the 1860s, and the market for lamp oil collapsed under it.
- Then whaling got bigger, not smaller.
Then whaling got bigger, not smaller. A method for hardening liquid fats turned whale oil into margarine, and the twentieth century killed far more whales than the entire age of…
- Whale oil also yielded glycerine, and glycerine makes explosives.
Whale oil also yielded glycerine, and glycerine makes explosives. Both world wars were fought in part on it, which is why whaling fleets counted as strategic industry.
- Ambergris forms in a sperm whale's gut and is found floating or washed up on beaches.
Ambergris forms in a sperm whale's gut and is found floating or washed up on beaches. It held perfume to the skin so well that lumps of it have sold for more than their weight in…
- The replacement for spermaceti turned out to be a desert shrub.
The replacement for spermaceti turned out to be a desert shrub. Jojoba makes a nearly identical liquid wax, and it now goes into the cosmetics that once required a harpoon.