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Lubricants

By the end of the 18th century, the burgeoning industrial revolution was requiring more and more oil, for the lubrication of machinery, including the spinning-jenny that had so revolutionized the woolen textile industry. The fat of right whales and bowheads provided much of what was required.

However, the finest lubricants came from sperm whales, a fishery dominated by the Americans. Sperm whales, like all whales, have a blubber layer but in addition they also have within their heads a huge reservoir (known as the case or mellon) containing up to 2,000 litres of a straw-colored, oily wax called case oil. Case oil was easily harvested since the head-matter was liquid when warm; the head of the sperm whale was simply cut open and then the oil could be bailed-out with a bucket, straight from case to cask.

Sperm oil, a pale yellow liquid wax was obtained by cooking together the case oil and blubber. Sperm oil is not a fat, but a liquid wax and it has properties, that make it a most valuable lubricant. For example, it remains liquid even at sub-zero temperatures and after treatment with sulphur it produces lubricants that are resistant to extremely high pressures.

In the 1800s watches and chronometers were the most precise instruments yet created and they needed the finest of lubricants. Sperm oil filled that role. In was also widely used to lubricate domestic sewing machines and in later years proved to be an excellent lubricant for airplane and submarine (what irony!) engines.

Sperm oil was also used in the 18th and early 19th centuries as an oil for lamps, replacing "train oil" from right whales. Its advantage was that it burned brightly and without smoke, an attribute that was of obvious value in a domestic setting but particularly so in lighthouses.

Case oil also contained Spermaceti, a solid, white, crystalline wax that congeals on contact with air. Spermaceti was named from the Latin sperma, “sperm,” and cetus, “whale,” in the mis-belief that it was the coagulated semen of the whale.

It was quickly discovered that spermaceti separated out from the oil after exposure to cold weather, as during a long New England winter, and then it could be used as a base for ointments and cosmetic creams and lipsticks, and also for fine wax candles.

Spermaceti candles burn with a clear, white, smokeless flame. These and other virtues of spermaceti candles are described in an advertisement in the Boston (Mass.) Newsletter of March 30, 1748. Clearly, the hyperbole of advertising agencies is not a new phenomenon!

Sperma Ceti Candles, exceeding all others for Beauty, Sweetness of Scent when extinguished; Duration being more than double Tallow Candles of equal size; Dimensions of Flame, nearly four times more, emitting a soft easy Expanding Light, bringing the Objects close to the Sight, rather than causing the Eye to trace after them, as all Tallow Candles do, from a constant dimness which they produce. One of these Candles serves the Use and Purpose of three Tallow Ones, and upon the whole are much pleasanter and cheaper.