WHALE-FISHERY. li?7 



supple, by the application of steam, or immersion 

 in boiling water. This improvement, which renders 

 the timbers more elastic, than when they are sawn 

 out of crooked oak, at the same time makes the boat 

 stronger and lighter. Though the principle has 

 long been acted upon in clincher-built boats, with 

 ash timbers, the application to carver-built whale- 

 boats, is, I believe, new. The bow and stern of 

 Greenland boats, are both sharp, and, in appear- 

 ance, very similar; but the stern forms a more acute 

 angle than the bow. The keel has some inches 

 depression in the middle, from which the facility of 

 turning is acquired. 



The instruments of general use in the capture of 

 the whale, are the harpoon and lance. 



The harpoon (fig. 4.) is an instrument of iron, of 

 about three feet in length. It consists of three con- 

 joined parts, called the " socket/' u shank," and 

 iC mouth," the latter of which includes the barbs or 

 *•' withers." This instrument, if we except a. small 

 addition to the barbs, and some enlargement of dimen- 

 sions, maintains the same form in which it was ori- 

 ginally used in the fishery two centuries ago. At 

 that time, the mouth or barbed extremity was of a tri- 

 angular shape, united to the shank in the middle of 

 one of the sides; and this being scooped out on each 

 side of the shank, formed two simple flat barbs. In 

 the course of last century, an improvement was made, 

 by adding another small barb, resembling the beard 

 of a fish-hook, within each of the former withers, in 

 a reverse position. The two principal withers, \\\ 



