OLD WHALING DAYS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 31, 31 January 1912, Page 5

OLD WHALING DAYS.

SOME INTERESTING RELICS. (Per Press Association.) Christchurch, January 30. A very interesting relic of the old whaling days at Akaroa has just been brought to Christchurch and added to the treasures of the Canterbury Museum. This is an old “trypot,” used by the whalers of the ’forties to melt down the blubber stripped from captured whales, thus extracting the oil. The trypot is an enormous castiron vessel, weighing fully half a ton. It is not unlike an enormous cauldron, and is fitted with a lip, and two of the sides bulge, barrel like, from top to bottom, while the other two sides are flattened. It is about three feet deep and fully four feet wide at the broadest part of the interior. It is fitted with a large spout from which the oil would be poured when the blubber had been melted down. It is a very stout and very heavy vessel. Its recovery for the museum was made by Mi 1 . Edgar R. Waite, the curator, who spent a short health vacation there. Mr. Waite, with a small party of friends, made a trip to the Island Bay, the property of Mr. Luke Wright, and found that this particular trypot had originally formed one of a set of five, which had been placed in close juxtaposition and cemented into place. Each trypot had two flat sides, so that it could stand close to its fellows. Beneath them were spaces for the fires. Three of the trypots had been previously removed, leaving only two in position. Mr. Luke Wright, who presented the trypot, also presented the remains of an old wooden windlass, and these will lie re-erected beside the trypot. These are two very interesting relics of the “roaring ’forties.”