HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 3I 



and his many pupils - all did a great deal to increase our knowledge of the 

 Cetaceans. 



But to return to whaling itself. Since the Sperm Whale was pursued all 

 over the world, and since whalers had to break their long voyages now and 

 then, it is not surprising that they imparted their skills to some of the native 

 population. Thus the foundations of the Mozambique, the Australian and 

 the New Zealand whaling industries were laid. From 1792 to 1930 New 

 Zealand Maoris used open boats to hunt Sperm Whales, Southern Right 

 Whales and Humpbacks with hand harpoons, as the Americans had 

 first taught them to do, and on the Friendly Islands the hunters continue 

 to operate in this primitive way even now. Here the catch consists almost 

 exclusively of cows, often accompanied by calves. The villagers of 

 Lamakera on Solor, and Lamararap on Lomblen, small islands in the 

 Timor Sea, still capture Sperm Whales, dolphins and an occasional 

 Rorqual with harpoons attached to a bamboo shaft. They use small 

 boats with a special platform in the prow for the harpooner. But not all 

 natives were brave enough to tackle these large animals, and once, when 

 a Sperm Whale appeared off the coast of Manokwari, the Papuans gave 

 the sea a wide berth for quite some time. The most important reminder 

 of the great past, however, is found on the Azores. Here the coast is very 

 steep, and Sperm Whales can therefore approach very close. They are 

 still caught from rowing boats with hand harpoons, and to this day some 

 of the blubber is boiled down on land in old-fashioned iron pots. The only 

 innovation in an industry which today operates from about fifteen land 

 stations is a motor launch for towing the boats out and the dead whales in. 

 The launches keep up radio- telephone contact with look-out posts on land. 



Probably not since 1600 have whales known a more peaceful era than 

 the second half of the nineteenth centuiy. Greenland voyages were over, 

 and Sperm Whale and Southern Right Whale hunting was declining 

 from year to year. Local activities in, for instance, Japan, Norway, and 

 California excepted, the whale was relatively safe. Unfortunately the 

 Golden Age was soon over. The Norwegians, seeing that the Biscayan and 

 Greenland W'hales were rapidly disappearing from under their eyes, 

 turned their attention to the faster Rorquals. With the advent of steam- 

 ships, the problem of speed was in the process of being solved, and all that 

 remained was to discover a way of killing the animals from a distance of, 

 say, 40 yards. From 1732 British whalers in the Arctic, in particular, 

 had begun to experiment with all sorts of harpoon guns and even with 

 bomb-lances, though with no noticeable success. In 1868 it fell to the 

 Norwegian Svend Foyn from Tönsberg to perfect a practical^le harpoon 

 gun and to improve it further by introducing the shell harpoon. The shell 

 of this harpoon was connected to a time fuse, and exploded inside the 



