'WHALE-FISHERY. 145 



THE WHALE FISHERY. 



Observations on the Fishery of different latitudes and 

 seasons, and under different circumstances of Ice, 

 Wind, and Weather. 



It is not yet ascertained, what is the earliest 

 period of the year, in which it is possible to fish 

 for whales. The danger attending the navigation, 

 amidst massive drift ice in the obscurity of night, 

 is the most formidable objection against attempting 

 the fishery before the middle of the month of April, 

 when the sun, having entered the northern tropic, 

 begins to enlighten the Polar regions throughout 

 the twenty-four hours. Severity of frost, preva- 

 lence of storms, and frequency of thick weather, 

 arising from snow and frost rime, are the usual con- 

 comitants of the spring of the year; and these, when 

 combined with the darkness incident to night, a 

 tempestuous sea, and crowded ice, must probably 

 produce as high a degree of horror in the mind of 

 the navigator, who is unhappily subjected to their 

 distressful influence, as any combination of circum- 

 stances which the imagination can present. Some 

 ships have sailed to the northward of the seventy- 

 eighth degree of latitude, before the close of the 

 month of March; but I am not acquainted with a 

 single instance, where the hardy fishers have, at this 



Vol. III. -19 



