WHALE FISHING. 355 



THE WHALE FISHERY. 



The chase of the whale has been long practised, and has furnished 

 material for countless stories of adventures. The figure copied from 

 " Scoresby's Account of the Arctic Regions" of a whale tossing a boat 

 and its crew far into the air is an artistic exaggeration ; at the utmost, a 

 whale has been known to toss a boat nearly three feet into the air. The 

 occupation has enough of excitement and danger to dispense with any 

 imaginary feats. The Basques are the people to whom belongs the 

 honor of first fitting vessels for hunting the whale. Like other nations, 

 these bold sailors at first contented themselves with attacking the 

 rorquals that visited their native coasts, but as early as 1372 they ven- 

 tured into the Northern seas. But the civil war of 1633 which ended in 

 a success for the Spaniards, destroyed the whale-fishing enterprise of the 

 Basques, many of whom left their country, and took with them a 

 knowledge of the art. .Hull, in England, sent out a whaling-ship in 1598, 

 and the merchants of Amsterdam formed a company in 1611 to prose- 

 cute the fishing near Spitzbergen. The business speedily developed. 

 Between 1676 and 1722 the Dutch had sent out 5,886 ships from their 

 harbors, and captured 32,907 whales. In 1732 England offered a bounty 

 to whalers, and even doubled the amount in 1749: the result was that 

 soon afterward she had over two hundred ships engaged in the pursuit. 

 At present the Americans are the most active. Scammon states that 

 between 1835 and 1872 nearly 20,000 vessels had been occupied in the 

 trade, and brought back a little over three and a half million barrels of 

 spermaceti, and six and a half million barrels of train oil ; worth, alto- 

 gether, two hundred and seventy-two millions of dollars. This state- 

 ment leads to the conclusion that 3,865 sperm whales, and 2,875 right 

 whales were killed annually. The year 1854 shows the largest figures, 

 668 ships, 73,696 barrels sperm, and 319,837 barrels train oil: while, in 

 1872, the numbers had fallen to 218 ships, 44,880 barrels sperm, and 

 31,395 barrels train oil, and in 1876, to 169 ships of all sizes. 



Whale-fishing is not only a very dangerous and laborious pursuit, but 

 it is also exceedingly precarious. Sometimes a complete cargo of oil 

 and whalebone is taken in a short time, but it also happens that after a 

 long cruise not a single whale is caught. 



The Greenland whale-fishery was at first confined to the seas between 

 Spitzbergen and Greenland, but at present the whalers seek the higher 



