SCIENCE AND STEAM 327 



whales were taken every year. In recent years the actual num- 

 ber is small, for there are fewer humpbacks, but the catchers 

 nowadays go more after the great blue whale, whose yield of 

 oil is nearly three times as large. 



But modern whaling was not to be confined to any one 

 sea. As in their earliest whaling, the British turned to New- 

 foundland; there, in 1897, the first modern whaling station was 

 established. Success was prompt and plentiful. In 1898 New- 

 foundland's whaling products were valued at $1,581; in 1900 

 they had jumped to $36,428, and in 1902 they had reached 

 $125,287. By 1903 there were four new factories and three 

 more were planned. (In variety and romance, the names of 

 the stations suggest, somehow, the names of ships: Balena, Aqua- 

 forte, Snook's Arm, Chaleur Bay, Cape Broyle, Bonavista, and 

 Trinity.) The early days of this modern Newfoundland whal- 

 ing were in some ways like the early days in Nantucket; the 

 people lived simply and, in the various trades connected with 

 whaling, nearly all of them joined their fortunes with the whal- 

 ers. This community of interest was largely accountable for 

 the successful whaling from Nantucket and similarly it made 

 for successful whaling in Newfoundland. By 1905 there were 

 eighteen stations. But the enthusiasts had gone too far: with 

 such unrestricted killing the whales were rapidly decreasing in 

 number. In the first ten years of the industry over four thou- 

 sand whales were taken; in 1903 the three small vessels that com- 

 prised the Newfoundland whaling fleet took 858 whales. Four 

 years later there were fourteen vessels at work and all fourteen 

 took only 481 whales. 



Similarly, the new whaling reached South America, Africa, 

 and Australia; Russia, and Bermuda; British Columbia, south- 

 east Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. The Japanese had 

 been whaling for a thousand years or more and now seized upon 

 the Norwegian method and characteristically adapted it to 

 their own needs, with all its strongest points and a few of their 

 own invention added. 



In one respect the Japanese are ahead of nearly all the rest of 

 us: they eat whale meat. True, here and there, and in great 



