MARINE MAMMALS — KELLOGG 309 



the West Indies. Another factor was the slow development of the 

 practice of erecting try-works for rendering the oil on decks of whaling 

 vessels. 



Nevertheless, sperm-whaling sloops from New Bedford and other 

 New England ports were cruising southward toward Bermuda as early 

 as 1756 (Ashley, 1938, p. 37) . Hmnpbacks and sperm whales, however, 

 were taken by local residents of Bermuda, according to colonial records 

 (True, 1904, pp. 27-29), during the years 1665, 1667, and 1668, and this 

 fishery continued in a desultory fashion until 1749 or later. 



These New England whaling ships while searching for sperm whales 

 apparently did not cruise among the West Indian islands until after 

 1760, but sometime before 1770 one or more vessels crossed the Equator 

 in the West Atlantic. 



During the period between 1771 and 1775, there were from 121 to 132 

 American vessels engaged in the southern whale fishery (Jefferson, 

 1876, p. 6) on both sides of the South Atlantic. Sperm and right 

 whales were hunted along the coast of Brazil from the Equator to off 

 the mouth of La Plata River and thence southward to Le Maire Strait 

 between Staten Island and Tierra del Fuego. Three of these Yankee 

 whaling vessels, the brig Montague of Boston, the ship Thomas of Cape 

 Cod, and the ship King George of Rhode Island, anchored at Port 

 Egmont in 1774 (Penrose, 1775, pp. 67-70) and seven others not specifi- 

 cally mentioned by name were Imown to be elsewhere in the Falkland 

 Islands that year (Jenkins, 1921, p. 235). 



British whaling ships sailed for the coast of Brazil and the Falkland 

 Islands in 1775. Before 1784, British vessels had made 76 voyages to 

 these whaling gi'ounds (Jenkins, 1921, p. 209) . Six whaling ships with 

 harpooners and crews from Nantucket were fitted out for the southern 

 whale fishery in 1784 at Dunkirk, France (McCuUoch, 1832, p. 1116). 



British vessels, likewise with crews from Nantucket, rounded Cape 

 Horn about 1788 (Starbuck, 1878, p. 90) and commenced sperm whaling 

 on the coast of Chile. They were followed by American whaling ships 

 which actively participated in the exploration of the Pacific and the 

 exploitation of sperm whale stocks in those waters. 



Hazards of capture during foreign and domestic wars, adverse con- 

 ditions at home, variable insurance rates, restricted markets, and violent 

 fluctuations in the market prices for sperm and whale oils kept the 

 whaling business in a continual state of uncertainty. 



Nevertheless, in the first half of the nineteenth century as many as 

 five or six hundred vessels were employed in hunting sperm and south- 

 ern right whales in the South Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans (Boyson, 

 1924, p. 220). 



Shortly afterward the general scarcity of sperm whales became rather 

 noticeable and the industry began its decline. Statistics for the year 

 1858 indicate that 68 ships were expected to return to Nantucket, Mass., 



