Appendix. IIQ 
of the 115 vessels added were ships and brigs, representing 
an increase of at least $2,000,000 in the invested capital. 
The lapse of four years precludes the argument that the 
new vessels had not had time to secure a cargo and 
return home—a point that becomes still more manifest 
if the imports for 1855 and 1856 are considered. 
The table of imports and the table of exports—Table 
IV—are properly studied together, since from the two 
can be had the best idea of the commercial importance 
of whale products. The table of exports also shows the 
close dependence of foreign trade on general economic 
conditions—nowhere more marked than in the falling off 
in the foreign trade as soon as the decline of whaling 
began. The decline of the export trade, especially in 
whale oil, seems to have been more rapid than the decline 
of the general industry. This table, taken with the 
table of prices, Table V, shows a remarkable example 
of increasing commercial importance of a single commod- 
ity with an almost steadily rising price. Whalebone is 
the product referred to—having continued its upward 
tendency in spite of all the adverse conditions so disastrous 
to the other products of the fishery. 
The annual prices again serve as good illustrations of 
the fluctuations in the whaling business—ups and downs 
being the rule, and stable conditions for more than a year 
or two being the exception. 
Tables VI and VII, figures of the North Pacific and 
San Francisco fleets, and the comparative imports at 
New Bedford and San Francisco are illustrative of the rise 
of the Pacific industry with the transference of a large 
part of the whaling interests to the port of San Francisco. 
This point is perhaps brought out best by the figures of 
the annual imports, at the two places. Two facts are 
noticeable: (1) The sperm oil is imported largely 
through New Bedford—being the product of the Atlantic 
fishery schooners from Provincetown and New Bedford 
and (2) the bone, at present the really valuable product 
