THE ORDER CETACEA. 71 



DANGERS ATTENDANT ON THE CAPTURE 

 OF THE WHALE. 



The dangers of the whale-fishery, in spite of the ut- 

 most care, and though under the direction even of the 

 most experienced mariners, are imminent and manifold. 

 The most obvious peril is that of the ship being beset 

 and sometimes dashed to pieces by the approach and 

 collision of those mighty fields and mountains of ice 

 with which these seas are continually filled. The deso- 

 late and inclement region, which is the scene of enter- 

 prise, encompasses the pursuit with its worst hardships 

 and dangers. In this realm of eternal winter, man finds 

 the land, the sea, and the air, equally inhospitable. 

 Every thing fights against him. The intensest cold be- 

 numbs his flesh and joints ; while fogs or driving sleet 

 often darken the sky, and at the same time arm the 

 frost with a keener tooth. The ocean over which he 

 moves, besides its ordinary perils, is crowded with new 

 and strange horrors. Sometimes the ice lies extended 

 in large fields that bar all navigation as effectually as 

 would a wall of iron, and over whose rugged and broken 

 surface he can only make his way but by leaping from 

 point to point, at the risk of being ingulfed at every step. 

 Sometimes it bears down upon him in vast floating 

 fields with such an impetus that, at the shock, the strong 

 timbers of his ship crack and give way like an eggshell, 

 or are crushed and ground to fragments between two 

 meeting masses. Sometimes it rises before him in the 

 shape of a lofty mountain, which the least change in the 

 relative weights of the portion above and that beneath 

 the surface of the water may bring in sudden ruin upon 

 his head, burying crew and vessel beneath the tumbling 



