FROM DOLDRUMS TO STU'N'S'LS 43 



eighteenth century. Here and there along the coasts of Maine 

 and of Massachusetts (and in a few other isolated spots such 

 as Beaufort, North Carolina) small boats sought to capture 

 the whales which came close in to shore. Boat-whaling, how- 

 ever, attained its greatest development in California. In 1851, 

 at Monterey, a certain Captain Davenport began to hunt the 

 whales which entered the coastal lagoons for breeding pur- 

 poses. His activities attracted enough imitators to make this 

 California lagoon-whaling a recognized branch of the indus- 

 try — although the total output was always relatively un- 

 important.^ 



The second and more significant exception consisted of the 

 bowhead whaling which came to be carried on primarily in 

 the high latitudes of the North Pacific. Credit for the open- 

 ing of these new grounds was usually given to the ship 6"^- 

 ferior^ of Sag Harbor, Captain Roys, which penetrated the 

 Arctic waters north of Behring Straits in 1848. At about the 

 same time, however, the pursuit of the new game was begun 

 in the Sea of Okhotsk and off the coast of Kamchatka. The 

 Kodiak Ground, too, had been discovered in 1835 by the ship 

 GangeSy of Nantucket, B. T. Folger, Masterj but this area, 

 off' the Northwest Coast of North America, was frequented 

 by the common right whale rather than by the bowhead. The 

 latter proved to be more desirable for three reasons: it was 

 more sluggish in its movements, and therefore easier to ap- 

 proach and to capture J its thicker coat of blubber afforded 

 more oil per animal of given sizej and it supplied longer 

 and heavier whalebone. 



Unfortunately, however, the bowhead was a lover of frigid 

 waters J and the frozen regions which had to be explored in 

 hunting it required the use of stauncher vessels, of heavier 

 equipment, and of a technique capable of dealing not only 

 with whales, but with ice-fields and bitter cold as well. Sim- 

 ilar conditions had been encountered, it is true, in the earlier 

 North Atlantic fisheries at Spitzbergen and in Davis Straits. 



8 The best accounts of this later boat-whaling are to be found In Clark, A. 

 H., writing in "Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States," VII, 

 pp. 40-63 ; and in Scammon, C. M., "Marine Mammals of the Northwestern 

 Coast of North America," pp. 247-276. 



