124 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



head on, and, when abreast of the hump, the boat-steerer put two irons 

 into him. Before the boat could be brought head on, the whale broached 

 half out of water and capsized her, the line fouling the boat-steerer's 

 leg, almost severing it from the body. With great presence of mind 

 he cut the line, and the other boat picked up the upset crew, and re- 

 turned to the bark. But the whale was not satisfied with his victory 

 over the boat. Like his fellow-destroyers of the Essex and Ann Alex- 

 ander, he aimed at a larger prey. Making for the bark, he struck her a 

 tremendous blow, prostrating the men on deck and burying the cutwater 

 and stern up to the planking in his head. A second time he struck 

 the vessel, but with much less force. In the mean time Captain Cook 

 got his bomb-lance ready and lowered another boat. Three times, with- 

 in eight yards of him, the captain fired the lance into his body, and 

 eventually made him spout blood, though with every piercing of the 

 lance he rushed open-mouthed at the boat, requiring the utmost skill 

 and coolness to avoid him. One hundred and three barrels of oil was 



loggerhead, for subbing and managiug the running line ; the stem of the boat is deeply 

 grooved on top, the bottom of the groove being bushed with a block of 1. sad, or some- 

 times a bronze roller, and over this the line passes from the boat. Four feet of the 

 length of the bow is covered in by a depressed box, in which the spear-line, attached to 

 harpoons, lies in carefully adjusted coils. Immediately bacli of the box is a thick pine 

 plank, in which the "clumsy cleet," or knee-brace, is cut. The gunwale is pierced at 

 proper distances for thole-pins, of wood, and all sound of the working oars is muffled 

 by well-thrummed mats, kept carefully greased, so ihat we can steal on our prey silent 

 as the cavalry of the poor badgered Lear. The phmking is carefully smoothed with 

 sand-paper, and painted. Here we have a boat which two men may lift, and which 

 will make ten miles an hour in dead chase by the oars alone. 



"The equipment of the boat consists of a line-tub, in which are coiled rtOO fathoms of 

 hemp line, with every possible precaution against kinking in the outrun ; a mast and 

 eprit-sail ; five oars ; the harpoon and after-oar, 14 feet ; the tub and bow-oar, 16 feet ; 

 and the midship, 18 feet long; so placed that the two shortest and one longest pull 

 against the two 16 feet oars, which arrangement preserves the balance in the en- 

 counter, when the boat is worked by four oars, the harpoon-oar being apeak. The 

 boat is steered by an oar '22 feet long, which works through a grummet on the stern- 

 post. The gear of the boat consists of two live harpoons, or those in use, and two or 

 three spare irons, i.e., harpoons secured to the side of the boat above the thwarts, 

 and two or three lances, secured by cords in like position, the sharp heads of all 

 these being guarded by well-fitted, soft wood sheaths. The harpoon is a barbed, 

 triangular iron, very sharp on the edges, or it is a long, narrow piece of iron, sharpened 

 only on one end, and affixed ou the shank by a rivet, so placed that before use the 

 cutting edge is on a line with the shank, but after penetrating the whale, and on being 

 drawn back, the movable piece drops at right angles to the shank, and forms a 

 square togyle about six inches across the narrow wound caused by its entrance. The 

 porpoise iron is preferred among the Arctic whalemen, as, owing to the softness of 

 their blubber, the fluked iron is apt to cut its way out. The upper end of a shank, 

 30 inches long, terminates in a socket, into which a heavy oak or hickory sapling polo 

 6 feet long is introduced. A short piece of whale-line with an eye-splice at one end is 

 then wrapped twice around the shank below the socket and close spliced. This line is 

 stretched with great strain, and secured to the pole with a slight seizing of rope-yarn, 

 intended to pay away and loose the pole in a long fight. The tub-line is secured to 

 the eye of the short line, after the boat is lowered. The lance is simply an oval-headed 

 instrument, with a cutting edge, a shank 5 or 6 feet long, and a handle as long, 



