24 REPORT— 1853. 



thin, would be greatly carried away, evidence from analogous facts may be satis- 

 factorily adduced. 



Thus, the manner in which the deep-sea lead is carried awaj-, and the deter- 

 minations rendered uncertain, when soundings are attempted in depths only of 

 50 to 100 fathoms, from a ship having but very little headway, might alone justify 

 the asserted grounds of probable error on the deep-sea soundings referred to. 



But further evidence of resistance in water, against the assuming of a straight 

 position of a rope or line, under tension, where it may have been previously thrown 

 into a curve, may be derived from some striking facts in the author's personal 

 experience whilst engaged in the Northern Whale Fishery. Let the annexed 

 diagram be supposed to represent one of these characteristic cases, where a boat is 

 seen with its bow in contact with a large field of ice. 



A whale, it is assumed, has been harpooned from this boat, which, as in such 

 circumstances generally happens, retreats for shelter beneath the ice-field, drawing 

 out the line with great force after it. Having pursued its original course beneath for 

 a distance probably of a mile, the necessity for respiration induces its return. Its 

 probable course may be shown by the line in the diagram, one end of it being 

 attached to the boat, and the other, by means of a harpoon, to the whale here 

 represented as having risen to the surface astern of the fast-boat. A few minutes 

 previous, perhaps, to the reappearance of the whale, the line attached to the boat, 

 which might have been for some time in a state of quiet or unaltered tension, is, by 

 a second eflfort of the entangled animal, powerfully withdrawn, so that the boat may 

 be pressed against the ice, as at first, with a force, possibly, equivalent to that of a 

 ton weight ! Yet, in this case, whilst the direction of the action on the boat is ahead, 

 say, northward, the actual place of the whale exerting this singular energy, may be 

 asteiii, or southward, the resistance of the water on the line preventing its taking a 

 straight direction, and causing it to sweep round a body of water in a circuit, 

 something after the manner of resistance of a more solid material. 



Observing this curious fact whilst he, the author of the communication, in very early 

 life occupied the station of harpooner in the Greenland Fishery, he successfully availed 

 himself of it for facilitating the capture of whales which might have been "struck" 

 by any of his associates. In the case of a whale being harpooned in " clear water," 

 where the "fast-boat," unencumbered by ice, was free to follow the course of the 

 entangled animal, the practice of the other pursuers, as they might successively come 

 up to assist in the capture, was ordinarily to distribute themselves in different angles 

 in considerable advance of the fast-boat. But he, noting carefully the cessation of the 

 advance of the original boat, which often happened, or its gradual deviation from the 

 course at first pursued, was accustomed to take up a position either astern of the 

 fast-boat, or wide upon its biam on the side towards which the deviation tended, 

 calculating that the resistance of the line by the water would cause the direction of 

 the boat's deviation to lag far behind that of the whale. The result was so satisfac- 

 tory, that in a large majority of cases, where the rule applied, his boat was found 

 so near the wounded animal on its reappearance at the surface, that he was most 

 frequently successful in striking the second harpoon. 



Hence, under such variety of illustration applicable to the case of deep-sea 

 soundings in the regions of strata-currents, it appeared to be an inevitable result. 



