The refinery for whale-oil, lately established at Rouen, seems to be an object worthy of national attention.  In order to judge of its importance, the different qualities of whale-oil must be noted.  Three qualities are known in the American and English markets. 1st.  That of the spermaceti whale. 2nd.  Of the Greenland whale. 3rd.  Of the Brazil whale. 1.  The spermaceti whale found by the Nantuckois, in the neighborhood of the Western Islands, to which they had gone in pursuit of other whales, retired thence to the coast of Guinea, afterwards to that of Brazil, and begins now to be best found in the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, and even of Cape Horn.  He is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fisherman.  The inhabitants of Brazil make little expeditions from their coast, and take some of these fish.  But the Americans are the only distant people, who have been in the habit of seeking and attacking him, in numbers.  The British, however, led by the Nantuckois, whom they have decoyed into their service, have begun this fishery.  In 1785, they had eighteen ships in it; in 1787, thirty-eight; in 1788, fifty-four, or, as some say, sixty-four.  I have calculated on the middle number, fifty-nine.  Still they take but a very small proportion of their own demand; we furnish the rest.  Theirs is the only market to which we carry that oil, because it is the only one where its properties are known.  It is luminous, resists coagulation by cold, to the forty-first degree of Fahrenheit’s thermometer, and fourth of Reaumur’s, and yields no smell at all:  it is used, therefore, within doors, to lighten shops, and even in the richest houses, for antichambers, stairs, galleries, &c.  It sells at the London market for treble the price of common whale-oil.  This enables the adventurer to pay the duty of eighteen pounds five shillings sterling the ton, and still to have a living profit.  Besides the mass of oil produced from the whole body of the whale, his head yields three or four barrels of what is called head-matter, from which is made the solid spermaceti, used for medicine and candles.  This sells by the pound at double the price of the oil.  The disadvantage of this fishery is, that the sailors are from nine to twelve months absent on the voyage; of course, they are not at hand on any sudden emergency, and are even liable to be taken, before they know that war is begun.  It must be added, on the subject of this whale, that he is rare and shy, soon abandoning the grounds where he is hunted.  This fishery, less losing than the other, and often profitable, will occasion it to be so thronged, soon, as to bring it on a level with the other.  It will then require the same expensive support, or to be abandoned.

2.  The Greenland whale-oil is next in quality.  It resists coagulation by cold, to thirty-six degrees of Fahrenheit, and two of Reaumur, but it has a smell insupportable within doors, and is not luminous.  It sells, therefore, in London, at about sixteen pounds the ton.  This whale is clumsy and timid; he dives when struck, and comes up to breathe by the first cake of ice, where the fishermen need little address or courage to find and take him.  This is the fishery mostly frequented by European nations; it is this fish which yields the fin in quantity, and the voyages last about three or four months.