HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 139 



average with square-rigged vessels being six points. This peculiar ac- 

 tion of the compass renders the navigation of the Arctic diliicult and at 

 times dangerous, especially in thick, foggy weather. Navigators in 

 these regions have proved to their satisfaction that on the American 

 coast, north and east of Point Barrow, to steer a land course by the com- 

 pass and allow the variations given by the chart, 440 15/ east, with the 

 wind at north or northeast, would run the ship ashore, steering either east 

 or west. * * * * Experience, therefore, has obliged navigators to 

 ignore the variations marked upon the charts, and lay the ship's course 

 by the compass alone to make a land-course safe in thick weather. * 

 * * * With an east or west wind the effect on the compass is not so 

 great as with other winds. I have said this much to show the working 

 of the compass in the Arctic Ocean during different winds, not tliat I 

 admit that the wind has any effect whatever upon the compass. I give 

 the facts as they came under my observation, and corroborative testi- 

 mony will be borne by any shipmaster who has cruised in the Arctic 

 Ocean." 



Although in the earlier, and at times in the later years of Arctic 

 whaling the yield of oil has been large, yet the extra expense of obtain- 

 ing it has been a formidable element entering into the calculation on the 

 profits of the voyage. The anchorage was found to be of that character 

 that the ground-tackle in use in other oceans availed but little, and 

 heavier anchors and cables had to be furnished to prevent the almost 

 inevitable drifting upon a lee shore, which, in a heavy gale, lighter an- 

 chors and lighter cables could only postpone. Again, but few ships 

 returned from these regions without showing heavy scars and wounds 

 as the result of their contest with the ice, while many vessels laid their 

 bones in these desolate seas and on the rock- bound coasts. The most 

 memorable instance of loss from shipwreck in the Arctic is that of the 

 season of 1871, when thirty-four vessels out of a fleet of forty-one were 

 abandoned in the ice as hopelessly lost. 



More particular stress has been laid upon the North Pacific fishery be- 

 cause the bulk of the Arctic whaling was carried on on the western coast, 

 but the pursuit was carried on in Iludson's Bay* and the surrounding 

 seas with no less danger and with no less loss when we consider the 

 number of vessels engaged. Scurvy, that dread of the sailor, was more 

 to be feared in the North Atlantic than in the North Pacific Oceiin.t 

 Vessels usually fitted for shorter voyages, and the sudden closure of the 

 ice around them, cutting them off from all communication with the out- 

 side world, attended as it was with a distressing uncertainty as to when 

 their imprisonment would terminate, was an event that was positively 

 appalling. The long catalogue of whale-ships crushed by the ice, which 



* Malte Bran says (v, p. 76, ed. 1826,) "All attempts at wbaliug in Hudson's Bay are 

 unsuccessful." 



t The Ansel Gibbs, of New Bedford, was lost in the ice in Hudson's Bay, October 19, 

 1872. Fifteen of her crew died of scurvy before they were freed from their icy prison. 



