Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 93 
Falklands, Tristan d’Acunha, etc., and in the Pacific 
the coast of Chili, Australia and New Zealand. Many of 
these grounds included great stretches of ocean within 
which the favorite feeding grounds were found. Most of 
them were long since abandoned because of the practical 
extermination of the whales. 
It is difficult to tell the precise date when each of the 
different whaling grounds was first visited, but the dates 
of the more important advances are preserved in the 
records. Previous to 1791 all the whaling was confined 
to the Atlantic, and until about 1773 or 1774 it had been 
wholly in the North Atlantic.” In 1791 the first whaling 
vessels went to the Pacific—six from Nantucket and one 
from New Bedford.“ The “on-shore’’ grounds were 
the only ones visited for a number of years. The “‘off- 
shore”? grounds were visited about 1818,“ and within 
three years over fifty ships were cruising in that region. 
In 1820 the first vessels sailed for the Japanese coast, and 
by 1822 between thirty and forty vessels were whaling 
there.” From that time on the whalers spread rapidly 
to all parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. In 1835 
whaling was begun by a Nantucket vessel on the great 
ground along the northwest coast. And in 1848 a 
Sag Harbor whaler passed through Bering Strait into the 
Arctic,” thus completing the last stage of advance in the 
pursuit of whales. As early as 1835 the Nantucket fleet 
went mainly to the Pacific, and after 1840 it went almost 
entirely to those grounds, while before 1850 a large pro- 
portion of the New Bedford fleet had followed this ex- 
ample. Since that time the Arctic grounds have been 
frequented each year by an increasing proportion of the 
= Macy, Dp. 54: 
8 Starbuck, p. go. 
“ Macy, p. 217. 
Macy, p. 218. 
“6 Scammon, p. 212. 
“ Starbuck, p. go. 
