THE AMERICAN WHALING INDUSTRY 8 3 



GEAPHICS OF THE AMERICAN WHALING INDUSTRY 



By Dr. J. ARTHUR HARRIS 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON 



RECENTLY in connection with another piece of work, I found it 

 desirable to express graphically various phases and factors of the 

 rise and decline of American whaling. 



In these graphs nothing is added to the facts recorded by Scammon, 

 Starbuck, Goode, Tower and others who have investigated and written 

 on the economic phases of the problem, and from whose tables the vari- 

 ous diagrams have been compiled. But the graphical treatment seems 

 to bring out so forcefully some of the points of greatest biological and 

 economic interest concerning the remarkable development and decline of 

 the once great and now insignificant industry that I have ventured to 

 offer them for publication, with a few explanatory remarks. 



In Fig. 1 the abscissae are years from 1805 to 1905, while the ordi- 

 nates are marked off by the total tonnage 1 of the whaling fleet. 



Here are clearly shown (a) the vascillations in size of fleet during 

 the first few years of trial and establishment of the industry, (&) the 

 depression associated with the war of 1812, (c) the phenomenal growth 

 of a quarter of a century made possible by the unrestrained exploitation 

 of ocean-wide resources up to the maximum point where there were over 

 seven hundred vessels aggregating over two hundred and thirty thousand 

 tons and valued at over twenty-one millions, (d) the temporary fluctua- 

 tions when the industry had reached its crest, (e) the precipitous fall 

 due to the depletion of the resources of the seas, to the risks and losses 

 of the great war, and to other causes, and finally the decline which fol- 

 lowed more slowly with the restoration of safety, but inevitably as almost 

 every product of the whale except the bone was replaced by those de- 

 rived from petroleum. 



The curve is remarkable for its regularity and for its similarity to 

 a biological variation polygon — to the normal or " Quetelet's " curve. 

 Indeed, the factors to which the form of the curve is due are in large 

 part biological, although economic and social forces are also patent. 



Some of the minor irregularities are doubtless due to the unavoidable 

 inaccuracies in the data. Apparently, the depression in 1850 and '51 

 is a real one; the revival of the industry resulting in the second mode 



i Number of sail which in 1846 reached 736 would be interesting for com- 

 parison, but the data are not available for so wide a range of years. 



