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HUGE FORTUNES IN WHALE OIL The most expert whalers . today are the Norwegians. Many years ago British whalers were supreme, but owing to the meanness and shortsightedness of the government, which withdrew the bounties that had been paid for the encouragement of the industry, the number of British whalers fell off, and they lost millions of pounds in consequence. Tin? most successful whaling ground just now is the South Atlantic, in the neighborhood of South Georgia, the South Shetlands and the South Orkneys. Tlie use of steam whalers has produced an enormous increase, for whereas in 1900 only 1S3 whales were caught in the Antarctic islands, last year 7,510 .were caught, the total value of the products being ,0G0.000. No fewer than 208,000 barrels of oil, valued at 85,050,000, were got from the whales; the bone fetched ,750 and the guano 3,005. In addition there were 2,941 sea-elephants anil seventy-seven sea-leopards killed, valued at 30,000.
