Natural Resources
The natural resources collections offer centuries of evidence about how Americans have used the bounty of the American continent and coastal waters. Artifacts related to flood control, dam construction, and irrigation illustrate the nation's attempts to manage the natural world. Oil-drilling, iron-mining, and steel-making artifacts show the connection between natural resources and industrial strength.
Forestry is represented by saws, axes, a smokejumper's suit, and many other objects. Hooks, nets, and other gear from New England fisheries of the late 1800s are among the fishing artifacts, as well as more recent acquisitions from the Pacific Northwest and Chesapeake Bay. Whaling artifacts include harpoons, lances, scrimshaw etchings in whalebone, and several paintings of a whaler's work at sea. The modern environmental movement has contributed buttons and other protest artifacts on issues from scenic rivers to biodiversity.
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Scrimshaw Whale Bone Food Chopper
- Description
- Simply carved and without any engraving, this food chopper, or mincer, was made in two pieces from a sperm whale’s jawbone. Its blunted, curved blade was used to chop soft foods such as bread dough, fruits, sausage, and animal fats. This example was donated by former Secretary of the Institution Spencer F. Baird (1823–1887) to the Smithsonian, where it became one of the earliest objects in the maritime collections.
- date made
- 1800s
- purchased
- 1876-11-30
- ID Number
- AG.024909
- catalog number
- 24909
- accession number
- 2009.0157
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Whaler's Mincing Knife
- Description
- Whaling crews used mincing knives to cut the blubber strips into thin slices down to, but not through, the thick whale skin. This process increased the surface area of the blubber and helped it melt faster in the try-pots. Cut in this fashion, the sections of whale blubber and skin were known as “bible leaves” because they resembled the pages of a book.
- date made
- 1876
- collected
- 1876
- ID Number
- AG.025912
- accession number
- 005019
- catalog number
- 025912
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Whaler's Boarding Knife
- Description
- The work of carving blubber from a whale carcass and hauling the long, narrow strips of flesh, called “blanket pieces,” aboard the ship onto the deck was called “boarding.” The boarding knife was an extremely sharp, double-edged sword blade at the end of a short wooden pole. It served a variety of purposes, from cutting a hole in the whale’s flesh for the blubber hook, to cutting the long strips of flesh into shorter sections for further processing.
- These tools were kept extremely sharp to cut the whale’s flesh easily. With the decks and tools so slippery from the whale processing, using them was reserved for the ship’s officers.
- date made
- 1876
- collected
- 1876
- ID Number
- AG.026608
- catalog number
- 026608
- accession number
- 4927
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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