212 MARINE MAMMALS OF THE NORTH-WESTERN COAST. 
numbers of Sperm Whales on the coast of Japan. Upon this information, in 1820, 
ships were dispatched to what is now known as the Japan Ground. The two first 
to arrive were the Nantucket ship Metro, Captain Joseph Allen, and the English 
ship Enderby, which was commanded by Frederick Coffin, of Nantucket. Here they 
were successful in soon filling their vessels with sperm oil, and two years after 
there were more than thirty ships upon that coast. About this period nearly the 
whole coast of western North America, as far as the land known as New Albion, 
was traversed by the sperm -whalemen, and it is said that more than a hundred 
ships were literally spanning the North Pacific in their eager search between the 
two continents for the coveted Cachalots. In 1828, four ships were sent from 
Nantucket to cruise for Sperm Whales off the coast of Zanzibar, around the Chy- 
chile Islands, and about the mouth of the Red Sea ; and one of the number, with 
the very appropriate name of Columbus, through the skill and energy of the captain, 
sailed up the Red Sea in quest of the objects of pursuit. 
But while the explorations and the chase for both the Cachalot and the Right 
Whale were being vigorously prosecuted in the North and South Atlantic, and 
through the temperate and torrid zones, not only by American whalemen, but by 
vessels wearing the flags of the principal maritime nations of Europe, those remote 
and forbidding latitudes of the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific had received 
due attention. As far back as 1803, ships were cruising around Kurguelen Land 
for Right Whales, in the season, and sometimes a portion of their crews were 
engaged in sealing along the surf -beaten shores of Desolation and the Crozet 
islands, making up "mixed" but profitable voyages. Subsequently the coasts of 
New Zealand and New Holland (now Australia), became prolific whaling-grounds. 
Yet, with all the vast extent of both sea and ocean known to the whalemen for 
prosecuting their vocation, there were adventurous spirits among them who were 
ever in deep study and eager for a new field of pursuit, and plying their vessels to 
the far north in the Pacific, an unparalleled success awaited them. In the year 
1835, * the American ship Ganges took the first Right Whale on the Kodiak Ground. 
This was the beginning of the great whaling of the North-western Coast; and in 
1839 the fleet of the United States engaged in whaling numbered five hundred and 
fifty -seven vessels, which were distributed among the Northern Atlantic ports in 
the proportions set forth in the subjoined table. In 1842 the number was six 
hundred and fifty -two. At this time the foreign whaling -fleet amounted to two 
hundred and thirty sail, and the combined fleet of the world, engaged in the enter- 
prise, numbered eight hundred and eighty -two ships, barks, brigs, and schooners. 
* Vide Nantucket paper. 
