294 THE WEALTH OF THE SEA 



pelled by steam. The steamer is armed with a small 

 cannon, called a harpoon gun, with which a large 

 harpoon is shot into the whale. The harpoon, which 

 usually weighs a little more than a hundred pounds, 

 has a cast-iron head or shell filled with powder. This 

 is exploded by a time fuse about three seconds after 

 the harpoon has left the cannon. Attached to the 

 harpoon is a rope which is also fixed to the boat. 

 When the harpoon is in the gun, forty to sixty 

 fathoms of the rope are coiled on a pan under the 

 gun. This acts as slack when the harpoon is fired 

 through the air. The harpoon has four prongs which 

 fold up behind the shell, but which spring out at 

 right angles to the harpoon when the line is tight- 

 ened after the whale is harpooned. 



Do not go whaling unless you are a very good 

 sailor, or you will be more seasick than you ever were 

 before. For the whalers are so designed that they can 

 turn easily ; on this account they roll and pitch worse 

 than a destroyer. The steamships are fast enough to 

 keep up with any whale, for all species are sought. 

 Before the day of steamers and harpoon guns, only 

 the more sluggish whales were hunted. The giant blue 

 or sulphur-bottom whale was too fast and too vicious 

 for the men in small boats. For this reason more of 

 these large whales are living to-day than of any other 

 species. Some species of whales, as the right whale 

 and the sperm-whale, which have been hunted for 

 several centuries, are now nearly extinct. 



Most of the whalers operate from a whaling station 

 located near the whaling grounds. When a whale is 

 captured it is inflated with compressed air, marked 



