208 WHALES AND DOLPHINS 



ships, pushing far northwards into the Arctic seas, found an 

 abundance of the more valuable Greenland Right Whale in 

 the bays of Spitzbergen. 



It should be emphasized that prior to the middle of the 

 nineteenth century the operation of the whale fishery was 

 quite unlike that carried on at the present time. Nowadays 

 highly-powered steam vessels, upwards of 120 feet in length, 

 equipped with harpoon guns and capable of a speed of 12 to 

 15 knots, can pursue the greatest whales with the minumum 

 of risk to the chaser's crew either from the elements or from 

 the animal they are hunting. Whether the whale floats or 

 sinks when slain is not important to the modern whaler ; the 

 carcase of the harpooned animal is heaved alongside the whale- 

 catcher by means of a powerful winch, a hollow tube is forced 

 into the body-cavity and air is pumped in to give the carcase 

 sufficient buoyancy to float. 



In the old days whaling was a much more primitive and 

 adventurous undertaking. The animals had to be hunted in 

 small rowing-boats ; hand harpoons and lances were used, so 

 that the harpooners had to get close up to the whales in order 

 to use their weapons effectively. Thus the speed of the animal 

 when alive and the buoyancy of its carcase when it was killed 

 were factors which limited the whale fishers in their choice of 

 quarry until the introduction of modern inventions. 



The Greenland Right Whale was admirable for this earlier 

 type of hunting. Scoresby says of it that " being less active, 

 slower in its motion and more timid than any other of the kind 

 of similar or nearly similar magnitude, it is more easily 

 captured ". It shares, with the other species of Balcena, the 

 properly of being slightly lighter than the water in which it 

 swims. In addition, however, to the favourable qualities just 

 mentioned, the Greenland Right Whale was sought out because 

 oi its exceeding richness. Sir Sidney Harmer in his ' History 

 of Whaling ' says that at one time whalebone sold for as much 

 as £2250 a ton, and that a large individual might produce a 

 ton and a half of this material ; tluis, together with the oil, 

 of which 30 tons might be obtained from one animal, it was 

 possible for the total expenses of an expedition's ship to be 

 defrayed out of the proceeds of a single whale. Scoresby 's 

 maximum figure for whalebone was £700 a ton, and he 



