202 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



amount, according to the highest estimate, to more than 

 155,565/.; while that of 1829 was reckoned at 376,150/. 

 The season of 1831 was also unfortunate, though not to 

 the same extent ; three of the vessels having suffered 

 shipwreck. The produce as compared with that of the 

 preceding year was, in oil, 4800 tons in place of 2205? 

 and of bone (baleen) 230 tons in place of 119. But in 

 1829 there had been obtained 10,672 tons of oil, and 

 607 tons of whalebone; and in 1828, of oil 13,966 tons, 

 and of bone 802 tons. The value of the whole produce 

 of the fishery of 1831, when oil had fallen from 50/. to 

 30/., and whalebone from 380/. to 200/., was estimated 

 only at 190,000/. The season of 1832 was considered 

 prosperous. 



It would be unfair, however, to judge of the value of 

 the trade entirely from these two years. " The British 

 fishery," it is remarked by the writer in the Edinburgh 

 Cabinet Library, " has lately yielded a produce and 

 value much exceeding that of the Dutch, even during 

 the period of its greatest prosperity. In the five years 

 ending with 1818, there were imported into England 

 and Scotland 68,940 tons of oil, and 3,420 tons of whale- 

 bone ; which, valuing the oil at 36/. 10s. and the bone 

 at 90/., with 10,000/. in skins, raised the entire product 

 to 2,834,110/. sterling, or 566,822/. per annum. The 

 fishery of 1814, a year peculiarly fortunate, produced 

 1437 whales from Greenland, yielding 12,132 tons of 

 oil, which, even at the low rate of 32/., including the 

 whalebone and bounty, and added to the produce from 

 Davis's Straits, formed altogether a value of above 

 700,000/."* 



* The price of baleen or whalebone at the present period(Aug-ust, 1833), 

 I am informed is about two shillings and two-pence per pound, retail, 

 but that the wholesale or market price is 160/. per ton. 



