FOREWORD. XV 



the blubber in square pieces was stowed in casks to be tried 

 out at home when the voyage was done. The method was 

 wasteful, and the process of trying out putrid blubber a 

 nauseous one. Yet it was almost the middle of the eight- 

 eenth century before any better way was discovered. 



But I am getting ahead of my story. Two factors con- 

 spired to alter the complexion of the whaling outlook very 

 early in the eighteenth century, both for Nantucket, and 

 for Long Island and Martha's Vineyard, which about this 

 time had developed quite a trade in whale-oil. As the 

 whale-hunters grew more numerous and more expert, the 

 whales were driven from their feeding grounds along the- 

 coast and it became necessary to go farther and farther 

 from land to make captures. Then, in 1712, an accident 

 introduced the sperm whale to his hitherto unappreciative 

 foes on shore. Captain Christopher Hussey of Nantucket, 

 while cruising in an open boat, was caught by an offshore 

 gale and driven out to sea. The men became exhausted 

 and very likely would have died of exposure had they not 

 chanced to run in among a whole school of sperm whales. 

 One sperm whale had been seen on Nantucket, a drift speci- 

 men; and the most fabulous notions were entertained as 

 to the value of the spermaceti. The sight of the huge 

 beasts roused the exhausted whalers to new life. They 

 killed a whale, and the "slick" of the oil oozing from the 

 wounded blubber so smoothed the waves that they weathered 

 the gale, and next day towed their great prize in triumph 

 to land. 



After that everybody wanted sperm whale, and as the 

 sperm whale never feeds close to shore, it was necessary 

 to fit out vessels large enough to go whaling out in the 

 "deep". Even then, they made short cruises, not more 

 than six weeks, returning to shore after each capture to 



