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whales were valued for the large amounts of blubber and oil that
they yielded and also for the baleen plates or "whalebone
". This is not bone at all, but made from a protein
substance called keratin like
other mammalian structures such as hair, skin, nail and
horn.
For a while at least, before being replaced with
spring steel and later on plastic materials, the whale bone was
very valuable and would be separated with the head to be brought
on board the ship to be stripped and cleaned as soon as possible.
If the whalebone was not obtained from the whale quickly, it would
start to take on a characteristic unpleasant smell that could
never really be got rid of.
Picture from an old postcard |
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