WHALE FISHERIES RABOT. 



487 



and had withdrawn far toward the southwest into the Strait of 

 Gerlache. The whalers sought to recover them and had no cause to 

 regret their labors. The strait literally boiled with whales, so much 

 so that in a single day a boat would capture six or eight of them. 



In 1911 this industry received a new extension. Last year the num- 

 ber of boats in this region increased to 22, belonging to eight differ- 

 ent companies. In this season as in the preceding one the Strait of 

 Gerlache was the principal center of operations and Port Lochroy 

 the anchorage discovered by Charcot. In Wiencke Island was the 

 general rendezvous of the whalers in this region. The hydrographic 

 surveys executed by the French Antarctic expedition thus served the 

 interests of commerce. 



So 



Si. 



Detroi 



C Horn 



t de Drake 



Sh^tlandsduSud 



T^ChaKq 



A . jT'^Fallienes 

 , C j' • / 



reCharcol "T~Alexandre 



Orcade 



jdu Sud 



ER DE WEDDELL 



7" 



(h 



Oo 



io 



Fig. 2.— Map of whaling stations in the Antarctic Ocean. 



According to many accounts, the strait was full of whales, to use 

 the picturesque expression of the Norwegian Fisheries Journal, and 

 every day they were killed without mercy, so that for quite a long 

 period one oil works was being replenished constantly by new sup- 

 plies and manufactured as much as 68,000 kilos of oil in a day. The 

 result of the season's work was represented by 16,061 tons of oil fur- 

 nished by 3,000 whales, of which 17 were right whales. 



In 1913 nine companies with 32 steamers were established in the 

 South Shetlands. They caught more than 3,000 whales. 



To conclude the enumeration of the whaling ground we will men- 

 tion Kerguelen Island. In 1908-9 a Norwegian company established 

 in this archipelago captured 232 whales, among them one right 



