While some of the men were down in the blubber-room cutting the "blanket-pieces", as the largest masses are called, others were pitching the smaller pieces on deck, where they were seized by two men who stood near a block of wood, called a "horse", with a mincing knife, to slash the junks so as to make them melt easily.

These were then thrown into the melting-pots by one of the mates, who kept feeding the fires with such "scraps" of blubber as remain after the oil is taken out.

Once the fires were fairly set agoing no other kind of fuel was required than "scraps" of blubber.

As the boiling oil rose it was baled into copper cooling-tanks.

It was the duty of two other men to dip it out of these tanks into casks, which were then headed up by our cooper, and stowed away in the hold.
As the night advanced the fires became redder and brighter by contrast, the light shone and glittered on the bloody decks, and, as we plied our dirty work, I could not help thinking, "what would my mother say, if she could get a peep at me now ?" The ship's crew worked and slept by watches, for the fires were not allowed to go out all night.