Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 79, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 December 1919 — The Fathead. [ARTICLE]

The Fathead.

It surely would be imprudent to address that formidable creature the swordfish as Fathead, yet the term would be quite appropriate. The heads of 100 average swordfish will yield sixty-flve gallons of an oil that has high market-value. Refined and sunbleached, it is Indistinguishable from whale oil, and fetches the same price. In fact, commercially. It Is whale oil. Whale oil is obtained on a much larger scale from halibut heads, which are treated in the same way as the swordfish heads—l. e., cooked to a pulp with steam and pressed. A short ton of them will yield 40 gallons of oil. Boston and Gloucester (Mass.) annually produce 12,000 gallons of refined oil from halibut heads. Away back in the seventies somebody discovered that salmon heads were rich in oil, and since then the production of it has been a considerable industry in connection with the Pacific salmon fishery. By 1895 the annual output had risen to 50,000 gallons.