July 30, 1924

Commercial Fisherman Harvesting Porpiose in the Ocean

Ocean travelers are familiar with the sight of schools of porpoise leaping and diving around their boats. Porpoise are a source of lubrication oil for watches that meets the delicate requirements is to be found in the jaw pans of the porpoise. To supply the demand for porpoise oil some 3,000 porpoise have been caught annually. They weigh from 300 to 600 pounds each and sometimes reach 12 feet in length. The fisherman extracts the crude oil from the fat in the jaw and sells it to a refining plant in New England for $50 gallon.