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Whale and Seal oil have a delightful aroma, most pleasant really. Whale oil was used in a vast variety of applications-the early automatic transmissions, watches and other mechanical devices long after it became too precious to burn for light. Coal and drilling is what really saved the whales.
Dextron transmission fluid makes a good substitute now, although it is not suitable for food products.






Whale oil (or "train oil") is oil obtained from whales. This was sourced from the blubber of the three species of right whale (Eubalaena japonica, E. glacialis, and E. australis) and the bowhead whale (Balaena mysicetus) as well as several other species of baleen whale - or in the case of sperm whale oil, from the head cavities of the sperm whale.

The term "train oil" was originally specific to right whale oil, but this term has been applied to all blubber oils and, in Germany and Sweden, to all marine animal oils: fish oils, liver oils, and blubber oils.

Whale oil flows readily, is clear, and varies in colour from a bright honey yellow to a dark brown, according to the condition of the blubber from which it has been extracted.

Sperm oil is the oil from the head cavity of the sperm whale. (The oil from the sperm whale's blubber is just a common whale oil.) A large sperm whale can hold as much as three tons of sperm oil. Stearin and spermaceti may be separated from sperm oil at low temperatures; at under 6 °C (43 °F) these constituents may be almost completely crystallized and filtered out. When removed and pressed, this deposit is known as whale tallow, and the oil from which it is removed is known as pressed whale oil, yet is sometimes passed as sperm oil.

The first principal use of whale oil was as an illuminant in lamps and as candle wax. It was a major food of the aboriginal peoples of the Pacific northwest, such as the Nootka. Whale oil later came to be used in oiling wools for combing and other uses. It was the first of any animal or mineral oil to achieve commercial viability. It was used to make margarine and was the basis of very effective protective paint for steel, e.g. the original (but not current) Rust-Oleum.

Whale oil's predominant place in society was mostly eliminated with the development of kerosene from coal in 1846, and the advances in petroleum drilling in the late 19th century, which led to petroleum-based waxes and oils replacing whale oils in most nonfood applications. Sperm whale oil was however still a key component in automatic transmission fluid until 1972.[1] With the 1986 International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, whale oil has all but ceased to be viable, as substitutes have been found for most of its uses, notably jojoba oil.[2]wiki