A machine of wonderful construction had been
erected on deck in a kind of shallow trough about six feet long
by four feet wide and a foot deep. At some remote period of time
it had no doubt been looked upon as a triumph of ingenuity, a
patent mincing machine. Its action was somewhat like that of a
chaff-cutter, except that the knife was not attached to the
wheel, and only rose and fell, since it was not required to cut
right through the "horse-pieces" with which it was fed. It will
be readily understood that in order to get the oil quickly out of
the blubber, it needs to be sliced as thin as possible, but for
convenience in handling the refuse (which is the only fuel used)
it is not chopped up in small pieces, but every "horse-piece" is
very deeply scored as it were, leaving a thin strip to hold the
slices together. This then was the order of work. Two
harpooners attended the try-pots, replenishing them with minced
blubber from the hopper at the port side, and baling out the
sufficiently boiled oil into the great cooling tank on the
starboard. One officer superintended the mincing, another
exercised a general supervision over all. There was no man at
the wheel and no look-out, for the vessel was "hove-to" under two
close-reefed topsails and fore-topmast-staysail, with the wheel
lashed hard down.
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