2 A History of the American Whale Fishery. 
and in most cases he cites the authority for, or the 
source of, his facts. So far as could be determined 
Scoresby furnishes the only available English account of 
this phase of whaling. From him has been drawn almost 
all of the first chapter in the following history. Several 
American writers have touched upon the same phase 
of whaling history, but, one and all, they have drawn 
their material from this same source. Scoresby’s book 
is a classic as regards the early history of whaling, and 
in addition it gives a very good outline of the principal 
European fisheries up to the second decade of the nine- 
teenth century. —. 
Macy, the historian of Nantucket, wrote a history of 
his native island up to the year 1836, which is a valuable 
source of information concerning the early development 
of whaling in this country. Almost until the time 
Macy wrote, Nantucket was the leader in the whale 
fishery, so that whatever he records takes on a double 
value. From the very nature of the book, a general 
history of the whole island, the references to whaling 
are necessarily scattered. But the fishing was so 
important to the islanders that a fairly connected history 
of it at that place is more or less constantly interwoven 
with the rest. 
The ‘“‘History of Nantucket,’’ by Macy, is one of the 
few important original sources in the history of the 
whale fishery. A large part of the facts presented 
are the result of years of personal observation and 
experience on the ground. Much of the rest was obtained 
from local records. The fact that many of these records 
have since been destroyed by fire makes Macy’s book 
practically the only good source of information con- 
cerning the Nantucket fishery. The book also gives 
an intensely interesting portrayal of the conditions in a 
community dependent on a single industry—and that 
industry as full of ups and downs as was the whale 
