198 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



a whale was struck with such terrific force as to cut the animal into two parts. The captain 

 had altered his course to avoid the colUsion, but was too late. The vessel was stopped and an 

 examination of the propellors made to see if they had sustained injury from contact with the 

 carcass, but no damage was discovered. There is no indication as to the species of whale 

 killed. The Boston newspapers of September 17, 1913, chronicle a collision between a whale, 

 of unknown species, and the Danish steamer Wladvmir Reitz, some 250 miles east of St. John's, 

 Newfoundland. The whale was not seen in time_ to avoid it, and it struck the ship head on, 

 "knocking a four-foot hole in the bow" and necessitating a run to St. John's for repairs. 



Captain Christaffersen of the whaling steamer Puma, told me in 1903, that while pro- 

 ceeding under fuU steam at night in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, he had collided with a 

 whale, which he supposed to have been sleeping at the surface. The shock woke the others 

 of the ship's company, and it was at first feared that the vessel had struck a rock, though the 

 water at that portion of the bay was known to be deep. In the darkness it was impossible 

 to tell what injury the whale had suffered. In all these cases, it seems that the collision was 

 quite by accident. 



On the 25th of July, 1842, a Wellfleet fishing schooner found a dead Finback Whale float- 

 ing off Plymouth, Mass., and took it in tow to Provincetown. On stripping off the blubber, 

 it was found that the under jaw was broken in two places and otherwise much injured. At 

 about the same time a Cohasset fishing schooner fell in with another dead Finback whose 

 jaw was similarly broken. It was supposed that the two had been fighting, and so had fatally 

 injured each other, but the usual peaceable nature of this species is rather against such a sup- 

 position. The sex of the dead animals is not given (see Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 3, no. 28, 

 July 9, 1842). 



It has occasionally happened that whales have become caught bj^ the anchor of a moored 

 vessel, and even sustained fatal injuries therefrom. Thus the Yarmouth (Mass.) Register 

 (quoted by the Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 35, no. 100, Aug. 27, 1855) recounts that a whale, 

 apparently a Finback, was caught by the anchor of the schooner Valentine Doane, of Harwich. 

 So violent were the whale's struggles to free itself that it broke the anchor, but received such 

 injuries in its frenzy that it shortly died and was later found floating on the surface. The 

 broken anchor was on exhibition for some while at Harwichport. 



An earher instance of this nature is recorded by Paul Dudley in his famous essay on the 

 natural history of whales. "A few Years since [previous to 1725]," he writes,' "one of the 

 Finback Whales came into a Harbour near Cape-Cod, and towed away a Sloop of near forty 

 Tun, out of the Harbour into the Sea. This Accident happened thus: It is thought the Whale 

 was rubbing herself ujion the Fluke of the Anchor, or going near the Bottom, got the Fluke 

 %■ 



1 Dudley, Paul. Phil. Tr.in.s. Roy. Soc. London, .Vhridgpd, 1734, vol. 7, pt. 3, p. 428. 



