270 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



Obviously many of these items were intended only for the 

 use of the officers upon special occasions. But without at- 

 tempting to distinguish between the ultimate uses of the vari- 

 ous articles, and after allowing for a generous margin of error 

 in estimating the cost of the entries for which no prices are 

 given, it is apparent that this original cargo represented an 

 outlay of $7,000 to $8,000. The amount expended for fresh 

 provisions and for other foodstuffs during the remainder of the 

 cruise could not have raised the total above $9,000, or about 

 $300 per man for a crew of thirty hands. And this figure, for 

 several reasons, is an unusually high one. The main cargo 

 was purchased at the high prices which were prevalent in 

 1865J the cost estimates, where they have been necessitated by 

 the absence of definite price quotations, have been made upon a 

 generous basis j and the agents of the Three Brothers ^ since she 

 was making her first whaling voyage, were naturally anxious 

 to encourage success by providing her with a good outfit. 



The lower figure of $150 per man per voyage was obtained 

 by combining the items of the Three Brothers with an earlier 

 list compiled by the Honorable Joseph Grinnell, Member of 

 Congress from New Bedford, in 1844. Mr. Grinnell drew 

 up a list of the foodstuffs carried by the whalers of his day, 

 and accompanied it with a record of the prices paidj but instead 

 of giving the quantity of each article required by a single ves- 

 sel, he showed the amount consumed annually by the entire 

 whaling fleet. The amounts consumed per vessel, however, 

 were secured by employing the figures given for the Three 

 Brothers. In view of the negligible changes in whaling ship- 

 board life between 1844 and 1865, and because of the virtual 

 identity of the average whaleman's food at the beginning and 

 at the close of this period, it seemed entirely reasonable to as- 

 sume that a crew of thirty men would require approximately 

 the same amounts of the staple foodstuffs in 1844 as in 1865. 



By using the articles and prices given by Grinnell in con- 

 nection with the quantities consumed by the later vessel, then, 

 it was found that the original cost of a cargo of foodstuffs in 

 1844 was $4160.28. The outlay for fresh provisions during 

 the remainder of the cruise would raise the total to about 

 $4500, or $150 per man per voyage for a crew of thirty men. 



