In 1712 a Nantucket whaler, Christopher Hussey, blown out to sea, killed some sperm whales and thus introduced the sperm-oil industry and put an end to the period in which only driftand shoreor boat-whaling had been carried on - the shore fishery died out about 1760.
It resembles the sperm-whale in possessing a large store of oil in the upper part of the head, which yields spermaceti when refined; on this account, and also for the sake of the blubber, which supplies an oil almost indistinguishable from sperm-oil, this whale became the object of a regular chase in the latter half of the 19th century.
The oil contained in cells in this cavity, when refined, yields spermaceti, and the thick covering of blubber, which everywhere envelopes the body, produces the valuable sperm-oil of commerce.
When separated and pressed, this deposit is known as whale tallow, and the oil from which it is removed is distinguished as pressed whale-oil; this, owing to its limpidity, is sometimes passed as sperm-oil.
Sperm-oil is obtained from the cavity in the head of the sperm-whale, and from several smaller receptacles throughout the body of the animal.
