DISINTEGRATION AND DECAY 303 



This picture of progressing decay was completed by the 

 further losses which came with the turn of the century. In 

 1896 there were still 77 whalers, of 16,358 tonsj but by 1906 

 even this small fleet had been cut in half, leaving only 42 ves- 

 sels, of 9,878 tons. Most of these, too, were small craft. The 

 average whaler was never a large vessel, even when measured 

 according to contemporary sailing-ship standards j but during 

 the years she grew still smaller, instead of larger. In 1846 

 the average number of tons per vessel was 317: in 1906 it had 

 fallen to 235. And, as was to be expected, this downward 

 trend of tonnage, vessels, and products was closely followed by 

 the number of men and the amount of capital. At the height 

 of the fishery 20,000 men and more than $20,000,000 worth 

 of capital were afloat in all latitudes and longitudes j whereas 

 in 1880 the $2,891,650 worth of invested capital was amply 

 manned by only 4,198 seamen.-^ 



During the period of sixty years bounded by 1846 and 1906 

 almost 700 American whaling vessels disappeared from the 

 seas. What became of them? To those who knew the mind 

 of the seaman, who endowed every sailing vessel with a dis- 

 tinct personality, the fate of these whaleships was comparable 

 in interest to the fate of men. Many left readily accessible 

 records. Thus it was known that fifty were destroyed by Con- 

 federate cruisers, that forty were sacrificed in the sinking of 

 the "Great Stone Fleet," and that fifty more were lost in the 

 Arctic disasters of 1871, 1876, and 1888. As for the others, 

 their dead hulks lie strewn about the reefs and ocean floors 

 of the seven seas. A few were broken up at homej but most 

 of them found their last resting-places under water, as a good 

 ship should. Some were "never heard from again," which 

 is a way of saying that they are guarding the bones of their 

 crews anywhere from the Cape of Good Hope to the Sea of 

 Okhotsk J some were sold into the merchant service, and were 

 finally scuttled after a shamed old age spent in carrying cheap 



iThe best sources of information for the later years of the industry are to 

 be found in the files of the Whalemen's Shipping List and in the monumental 

 work, "Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States." In the latter, see 

 especially the writings of Brown, J. T., in Vol, VII, and those of Clark, A. H., 

 in Section V, Vol. II. The most readable secondary account, as well as the 

 most recent one, is that by Jenkins, J. T., "History of the Whale Fisheries." 



