Late Noon in the West 251 



ers saw the whole period through; the Maria, Rousseau, Triton, and 

 Ocean were broken up only after ninety, eighty-seven, seventy-nine, 

 and seventy-five years of work respectively. The Maria was built in 

 Massachusetts in 1782 and broken up in San Francisco in 1872. The 

 distribution of ownership of the fleet is also of great interest. In 1 847 

 no fewer than thirty-four ports were engaged in whaling, the nine 

 leaders being in the following order: New Bedford (254 ships), 

 Nantucket (75), New London (70), Sag Harbor (62), Fairhaven 

 (48), Stonington (27), Warren, R.I. (23), Provincetown (18), and 

 Mystic (17). Where the ships went after whales proves to be even 

 more significant. 



In the year 1847, sixty small barques and some schooners went 

 after sperms in the North Atlantic, only one ship went to the north- 

 ern fishing in Davis Strait, thirty-two barques went after sperms in 

 the Indian Ocean, one schooner went to the Pacific after sperms, and 

 six hundred ships and barques went to the same ocean, a fifth of them 

 exclusively for sperms. The same year, the first American whaler 

 entered the Sea of Okhotsk inside Kamchatka on the Siberian coast 

 and found an enormity of bowheads assembled there to breed. This 

 initiated a whole new industry, but at the same time presaged the 

 real beginning of the end of American whaling. 



The method of whaling from American ships during this period 

 was unvaried. It stemmed directly from the original Basque plan and 

 was in no way dissimilar to that of the Hollanders on the high seas. 

 The whalers were heavy, tublike wooden ships with blunt, almost 

 flat, bows and abrupt square transoms. They carried steeply cocked 

 bowsprits of considerable length and stepped three masts, the fore 

 and main being square-rigged, the aft or mizzen usually fore-and-aft- 

 rigged. Officers' quarters were aft and although not luxurious were 

 more spacious and just as comfortable as the average modern cabin 

 cruiser, often with a double, spring-mattress bed slung on gimbals 

 for the captain and his wife, who many times was aboard. The crew's 

 quarters were in the forecastle and were cramped, dark, airless, and 

 verminous with three tiers of narrow board bunks forming a V and 

 just enough space between for the crew of two to three dozen to 

 stash their slop chests and to grab filthy meals in relays seated upon 

 them. The deck was cluttered with boats, gear, and tools, and a large 

 part of it between the fore and main masts was taken up with a large 



