Introductory 



THERE seems to be a general impression that man's association 

 with the whale began about two hundred years ago somewhere 

 in New England, and that it came to an end sometime during the 

 latter half of the last century with the passing of the square-rigged 

 sailing ships. There even appears to be a general haziness as to why 

 it ever occurred at all, apart from the desire on the part of some 

 New England families to amass fortunes. Any such impressions are 

 completely erroneous, for man has been following the whale for ten 

 thousand years and he is still doing so today with even greater vigor 

 and more deplorable success than ever before. Actually, the duration 

 of New England whaling is almost negligible in point of time and 

 quite paltry in many other respects when viewed against the whole 

 sweep of whaling history. As an enterprise also it fades into insignifi- 

 cance when compared to the implacable modern industry, though in 

 romantic appeal it will forever stand out as one of the greatest pe- 

 riods in the history of America and of man's conquest of the sea in 

 general. 



The literature on whaling is vast. Whole libraries have been writ- 

 ten on the subject and fair-sized museums are devoted exclusively 

 to the preservation of its accoutrements, while there are even 

 "stuffed" whaling ships housed in large halls or embedded in con- 

 crete docks. Nevertheless, great parts of whaling history, and espe- 

 cially of the more ancient and most modern, have been completely 

 ignored. Similarly, the literature on the whales themselves leaves 

 much to be desired, and for two reasons. First, technical works are 

 scattered and hard to assemble, while many popular works are rid- 

 dled with contradictions. Second, it is only very recently that pro- 

 longed and accurate scientific investigations have been made of 



