Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/565

Rh H A W H A 529 which state it is cut either into narrow strips or into small bristle-like filaments, according to the use to which it is to be devoted. Whalebone possesses a unique combination of properties which render it peculiarly and almost exclusively suitable for several pur poses. It is light, flexible, tough, and fibrous, and its fibres run parallel to each other without intertwisting. It has been found practicable to employ flexible steel for several purposes to which whalebone was formerly applied, especially in the umbrella and corset industries, in which steel is now almost exclusively used. Whalebone is, however, still in large demand among dressmakers and milliners ; but it is principally used in the brush trade. In cases where bristles are too soft and weak, and where the available vegetable fibres possess insufficient elasticity and durability, whale bone offers the great advantage of being procurable in strips or filaments, long or short, thick or thin, according to requirement. Hence it is principally used for making brushes for mechanical purposes, such as machines for road-sweeping, chimney-sweeping, boiler-flue cleaning, the cleaning of ships bottoms, and for stable use, &c. The use of whalebone in brush-making was originally patented by Samuel Crackles in 1808, and various special machines have been adapted for cutting the material into filaments. When whalebone came into the English market in the 17th century it cost at first about 700 per ton. In the 18th century its price ranged from 350 to 500 per ton, but early in the 19th century it fell as low as 25. Later it varied from 200 to 250 ; but with the decrease in whaling the article has become very scarce, and upwards of 1500 per ton is now paid for Greenland whalebone. WHALE OILS. The whale or train (Germ., Thran) oil of commerce may be obtained from the blubber of any species of whale or dolphin (see WHALE FISHERIES, above). The only whale oil that is otherwise commercially distin guished is sperm or spermaceti oil, yielded by the sperm whales. Whale oil 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. At best it has a rank fishy odour, and the darker the colour the more dis agreeable the smell. Train oil consists of a glyceride of physetoleic acid (also found in earth-nut oil), together with stearin, palmitin, &c. With lowering of the temperature stearin, accompanied with a small proportion of spermaceti, separates from the oil, and a little under the freezing-point nearly the whole of these constituents may be crystallized out. When separated and pressed, this deposit is known as whale tallow, and the oil from which it is removed is distin guished as pressed whale oil ; this, owing to its limpidity, is sometimes passed as sperm oil. Whale oil is principally used in oiling wools for combing, in batching flax and other vegetable fibres, in currying and chamois leather-making, and as a lubricant for machinery. Sperm oil is obtained from the enormous cavity in the head of the sperm whale, and from several smaller receptacles throughout the body of the animal. During the life of the whale the contents of these cavities are in a fluid condition, but no sooner is the &quot; head matter &quot; removed than the solid wax spermaceti separates in white crystalline flakes, leaving the oil a clear yellow fluid having a fishy odour. The oil, which has an acid reaction, is purified by treatment with a solution of potash, which precipitates impurities held by the acid of the oil. Refined sperm oil is a most valuable lubricant for small and delicate machinery. WHARTON, MARQUIS OF. Two noblemen with this title, father and son, hold a certain place in English literary history as subjects of satiric portraiture. THOMAS WHARTON (1640-1715), a prominent Whig politician at the Revolution, is reputed by Dr Percy to have been the author of the famous political ballad Lilli- lmrle.ro, which &quot;sang James II. out of three kingdoms.&quot; Wharton was lord-lieutenant of Ireland in Anne s reign, and incurred the wrath of Swift, who attacked him as Vcrres in the Examiner (No. 14), and drew a separate &quot; character &quot; of him, which is one of Swift s masterpieces. He was a man of great wit and versatile cleverness, and cynically ostentatious in his immorality, having the repu tation of being the greatest rake and the truest Whig of his time. Addison dedicated to him the fifth volume of the Spectator, giving him a very different &quot;character&quot; from Swift s. PHILIP WHARTON (1699-1731), the son of Thomas, suc ceeded to title and fortune at the age of sixteen, and quickly earned for himself, by his wild and profligate frolics and reckless playing at politics, Pope s satire of him as &quot; the scorn and wonder of our days &quot; (Moral Essays, i. 179). He spent his large estates in a few years, then went abroad and gave eccentric support to the Old Pre tender. There is a lively picture of his appearance at Madrid in 1726 in a letter from the British consul, quoted in Stanhope s History of England (ii. p. 140). The elder Wharton is described at length by Macaulay as one of the four chiefs of the Whigs after the Revolution (History, chap. 20). He was created earl of Wharton in 1706, and marquis in 1714, immediately after the arrival of George I. in England. The younger Wharton succeeded to the marquisate in 1715 on his father s death, and was created duke on coming of age in 1720. WHATELY, RICHARD (1787-1863), archbishop of Dublin, was born in London on 1st February 1787. He was the youngest of the nine children of the Rev. Joseph Whately of Nonsuch Park, Surrey. After attending a pri vate school near Bristol (where his father was prebendary), he went to Oxford in 1805 and entered Oriel College, then the most distinguished in the university. Copleston, afterwards bishop of Llandaff, was a college tutor when Whately entered, and had a marked influence upon the younger man. In their long walks together round Oxford they discussed and worked out much that was afterwards embodied in Whately s Logic. Whately took a double second-class in honours in 1808, afterwards gaining the prize for the English essay, and in 1811 he was elected fellow of Oriel. He continued to reside at Oxford as a. private tutor, and in 1814 took holy orders. The Oriel common-room at that time was full of intellectual life, destined to discharge itself in very varied channels. Be sides Copleston and Whately, Davison, Arnold, Keble, and Hawkins were among the fellows, and Newman and Pusey were added about the time of Whately s leaving Oxford. Newman has put on record in his Apologia his indebted ness to Whately, who, he says, opened his mind and taught him to think and to use his reason. They soon became separated ; but between Arnold and Whately there was a warm friendship till the death of the former. It was at this time that Whately wrote his celebrated tract, Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte, a very clever jeu cVesprit directed against excessive scepticism as applied to the Gospel history. In 1820 Whately made the acquaint ance of Elizabeth Pope, to whom he was married in July of the following year. After his marriage he first settled in Oxford, where he continued to take pupils, and in 1822 he was appointed Bampton lecturer. The lectures, On the Use and Abuse of Party Spirit in Matters of Religion, were published in the same year, and were followed by a volume of Sermons in 1823.. In August 1823 he removed to Halesworth in Suffolk, a country living to which he had been presented. Here two years were spent in vigorous parish work ; but the damp climate nearly proved fatal to Mrs Whately, and, when he was appointed in 1825 to the principalship of St Alban Hall, he returned with his family to Oxford. In the same year he took the degree of doctor of divinity. At St Alban Hall Whately found much to reform, and he left it a different place. In 1825 he published a series of Essays on Some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion, followed in 1828 by a second series On Some of the Difficulties in the Writings of St Paul, and in 1830 by a third On the Errors of Romanism traced to their Origin in Human Nature. He also published in 1829 a volume of his Halesworth sermons, under the title A View of the Scripture Revelations concerning a Future XXIV. 67