CAUSES or SUCCESS IX THE FISHERY. 335 



sonal talent of the master of the vessel, supported 

 by a necessary degree of skill among the people 

 composing his crew. There are occasions, however, 

 especially in those seasons when the Greenland seas 

 arc open, or in some mcasm'e free from ice, in which 

 personal talent becomes of comxparative little avail. 

 This was strikingly the case in the year 1817, 

 and in some degree in 1818. In the former season, 

 in particular, the ice lay at a distance so remote 

 from Spitzbergen, that a space of about 2000 square 

 leagues of the surface of the sea, which is usually 

 covered by ice, was wholly void of it. Hence the 

 whales, having an immense sea to sport in, and 

 finding no ice in the usual places to act as an ob- 

 stacle to prevent their flight, or as a shelter to in- 

 duce their stay, were cither constantly moving from 

 place to place, or took up their abode in the most 

 unfrequented and unexpected situr.tions. What- 

 ever judgments, therefore, were formed, though 

 founded on the most plausible appearances, or 

 whatever probabilities the judicious fisher was led 

 by experience to estimate and act upon, proved falla- 

 cious, and tended only to embarrass liim in all his 

 proceedings. Thus inferences and deductions the 

 most sagacious in appearance, had no tendency but 

 to mislead and perplex the navigator. Besides, tlic 

 range of space in the fishing country being so asto- 

 nishingly great, and tlic whales, except in a few 

 particular spots, so unusually scarce, it followed, that 

 the fishery, as was actually the case, must be ex- 



