SITUATION OF THE FISHERY CHANGED. 183 



America, and its most northern islands, has gene- 

 rally, since the close of the 17th century, been the 

 scene of an advantageous whale-fishery. This fish- 

 ery was first attempted by the Dutch in 1719, as has 

 before been mentioned ; after which period, it was 

 usually resorted to by about three-tenths of their 

 whalers, while seven-tenths proceeded to Spitzbergen. 

 The whale-fishery of Davis' Straits, is conducted in 

 an extensive limit, and differs only from that of Spitz- 

 bergen or Greenland, in the sea being in many dis- 

 tricts less incommoded with ice, and in the climate, 

 on account of its lower latitude, or the influence of 

 the land in receiving and dispersing the heat de- 

 rived from the sun, being somewhat more mild. 

 The alterations which have taken place in this 

 fishery, are in some measure similar to what have 

 occurred at Spitzbergen. The fish which, half a 

 century ago, appear to have resorted to all parts of 

 the western coast of Old Greenland, in a few years 

 retired to the northward, but they still remained 

 about the coast. Within a very few years, how- 

 ever, of the present, they deserted some of the nor- 

 thern bays in which they used to be captured in 

 considerable abundance, and have of late been 

 principally caught in icy situations, in a high lati- 

 tude, or in the opening of Hudson's Straits, or at 

 the borders of the western ice near the coast of La- 

 brador, 



