CHAPTER XVI 



Whales and Whaling 



THE capture of whales and the manufacture of 

 whale products played an important part in 

 our colonial history. In the seventeenth cen- 

 tury whales must have been very plentiful along the 

 New England coast, for whale carcasses were often 

 washed ashore. Disputes concerning the ownership 

 of drift whales were common. The colonists had not 

 yet learned to capture whales at sea, and they con- 

 fined their efforts to the capture of the small whales 

 which could be caught offshore. In calm weather the 

 fishermen would sometimes venture in their open 

 boats nearly out of sight of land in their search for 

 whales. 



Early in the eighteenth century, the whalers began 

 to sail farther from shore, until by the middle of the 

 century, when the New Bedford and Nantucket 

 whaling industries were well established,- these hardy 

 sailors were, as Burke told the English Parliament, 

 sailing from pole to pole in quest of whales. From 

 then on the industry grew rapidly until it reached 

 its zenith in 1850. In that year 736 vessels, hailing 

 from a dozen or more New England ports, returned 

 with 14,744 barrels of sperm-oil, 39,215 barrels of 

 whale-oil, and 894,700 pounds of whalebone. Nearly 



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