EARNINGS AND THE LAY 229 



be employed. Characteristic "tools of the trade" existed in 

 abundance. The lance and the harpoon were as typical of the 

 whaleman as the trowel of the bricklayer or the saw and ham- 

 mer of the carpenter. Every green hand necessarily spent the 

 early months of his first cruise in a real, though informal and 

 unofficial, period of apprenticeship. 



Furthermore, the duties and privileges of each one of the 

 strictly-defined ranks aboard a whaleship depended upon an 

 unwritten code observed with punctilious nicety. Succession 

 from one rank to the next was in accordance with a definite 

 system of advancement, based primarily upon the attainment 

 of a minimum degree of proficiency. In fact, an analogy 

 which is far from fanciful may be drawn between the fore- 

 mast hands, boatsteerers, and mates and masters of the Amer- 

 ican whalers, and the apprentices, journeymen, and master 

 workmen of the mediseval craft guilds. In addition, too, there 

 is the striking and obvious similarity between the same three 

 whaling ranks and the seamen, petty officers, and commissioned 

 officers of the navy, as well as the privates, noncommissioned 

 officers, and commissioned officers of the army. 



The slow and cautious progress from one shipboard post to 

 another was well illustrated in the record of a single whaling 

 lifetime, typical of hundreds of others spent in the industry. 

 In early youth a voyage was made as cabin boy at a lay of /4i5. 

 During successive cruises thereafter, each of two to four years' 

 duration, the same man sailed as foremast hand at a share of 

 Kes; as boatsteerer at Yes-, as third mate at %8j as second mate 

 at /^sj as first mate at /^sj and finally as master at Vie. Before 

 retiring from the sea a second voyage was made as captain, 

 this time at a lay of 344.* In other words, it was necessary for 

 this representative whaleman to complete six entire cruises, in- 

 volving some fifteen to twenty years at sea, before he was en- 

 trusted with the command of a whaler. 



But if the earnings of an individual successful whaleman 

 increased with each successive voyage, the lay of the average 

 foremast hand, stated in fractional terms, became steadily 

 smaller throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. 



* See Brown, J. T., in "Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the U. S," 

 (Goode, G. B., Editor), VII, p. 291. 



