68 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



artificial support. The Americans, Hamburghers, and 

 Prussians are now almost the only competitors with 

 whom the English whalers have to contend. The 

 French revolution, and the wars by which it was fol- 

 lowed, drove both France and Holland from the field ; 

 and neither of these countries have succeeded in the 

 attempts they have made since the peace, to re-enter 

 upon a line of enterprise, their pursuit of which had been 

 so long interrupted. 



PROBABLE SUCCESS OF THE WHALE-FISHERY, 

 IN THE ARCTIC SEAS. 



The success of the fishery varies with the spot in which 

 whales are found. The most advantageous that the 

 Greenland Sea has afforded, has been considered to be 

 on the border of those immense fields of ice with which a 

 great extent of them is covered. In the open sea, when 

 a whale is struck, and plunges beneath the waters, he 

 may rise again in any part of a wide circuit, and at any 

 distance from the boats ; so that, before a second harpoon 

 can be struck, he may plunge again, and by continued 

 struggles effect his extrication : but, in descending be- 

 neath these immense fields, he is hemmed in by the icy 

 floor above, and can only find an atmosphere to breathe 

 by returning to their outer boundary. The space in 

 which he can rise is thus contracted from a large circle 

 to a semicircle, or even a smaller segment. Hence, a 

 whale in this position is attacked with a much better 

 chance of success : even two may be pursued at the same 

 moment; a measure which, in the open sea, often in- 

 volves the loss of both. In the flourishing state of the 

 Dutch fishery, a hundred of their vessels have been seen 

 at once, ranged on the margin of one of these immense 



