112 THE INHABITANTS OF TIE SEA. 
the whaler is continually obliged to look out for more productive 
seas, it is not because the whale has migrated, but because he 
has been nearly extirpated in one place and left unmolested in 
another. 
The Greenland whale fishery was for more than a hundred 
years confined to the seas between Spitzbergen and Greenland ; 
the entrance and east shore of Davis’ Straits not being frequented 
before the beginning of the last century. Since then the ex- 
peditions of Ross and Parry have made the whalers acquainted 
with a number of admirable stations on the farther side of Davis’ 
Straits and in the higher latitudes of Baffin’s Bay. The vessels 
destined for that quarter sail usually in March, though some 
delay their departure till the middle or even the end of April. 
They proceed first to the northern parts of the coast of Labrador, 
or to the mouth of Cumberland Strait, carrying on what is 
called the south-west fishery. After remaining there till about 
the beginning of May, they cross to the eastern shore of the 
strait and fish upwards along the coast, particularly in South- 
east Bay, North-east Bay, Kingston Bay, or Horn Sound. 
About the month of July they usually cross Baffin’s Bay to 
Lancaster Sound, which they sometimes enter, and occasionally 
even ascend Barrow’s Strait twenty or thirty miles. In re 
turning, they fish down the western shore, where their favourite 
stations are Pond’s Bay, Agnes’ Monument, Home Bay, and 
Cape Searle, and sometimes persevere till late in October. The 
casualties are generally very great, the middle of Baffin’s Bay 
being filled with a compact and continuous barrier, through 
which, till a very advanced period of the season, it is impossible 
for the navigator to penetrate. Between this central body and 
that attached to the land, there intervenes a narrow and pre- 
carious passage, where many a vessel has been crushed or pressed 
out of the water and laid upon the ice. In 1819 ten ships were 
lost out of sixty-three, and in 1821 eleven out of seventy-nine. 
Fortunately the loss of lives is seldom to be deplored, as the 
weather is generally calm and the crew has time enough to 
escape in another vessel. 
Whale fishing is not only a very dangerous and laborious 
pursuit, it is also extremely precarious and uncertain in its 
results. Sometimes a complete cargo of oil and whalebone is 
captured in a short time, but it also happens that after a long 
