226 MARINE MAMMALS OF THE NORTH-WESTERN COAST. 
ning out. The bomb -gun and lances are for killing the whale at a greater distance 
than could be done with the hand -lance; it does good execution within a range 
of twenty -five yards. Greener's harpoon -gun is also used by whalers to some 
extent, and quite successfully when the sea is smooth. It is similar to a small 
swivel -gun. The barrel is three feet long, with a bore of one inch and a half; 
when stocked and complete, it weighs seventy -five pounds. The harpoon, four and 
a half feet long, is projected with considerable accuracy to any distance under 
eighty -four yards. It is mounted on the bow of the boat, and was formerly fired 
by the boat-steerer, who pulls the "harpooner oar." This was the old Scotch 
plan, the gun being first used by the Scotch whalers ; but at the present time it 
is more successfully managed by the officer in charge of the boat, who takes the 
boat-steerer's place for the time being. 
The whale-boat being properly equipped, the crew take their places as follows: 
the officer in charge (or boat -header) in the stern, who steers the boat with the 
steering -oar, which is usually twenty -two feet long; the boat-steerer, who pulls the 
oar farthest forward, which is called the harpooner- oar, its length being usually 
seventeen feet, and who also darts the harpoon, and after the boat is fast changes 
ends with the boat -header and steers the boat, while the latter attends to killing 
the whale. The next man is called the "bowman," with an oar seventeen and a 
half feet in length, and besides his general duties he attends to the line when 
"bowing-on." The next man is the "midship - oarsman," whose oar is eighteen 
feet in length; then comes the "tub -oarsman," with an oar the same length as 
that of the bowman, whose special duty is to see that the line runs clear from the 
tub. The last is the "after -oarsman," who is the lightest of the crew, and pulls 
a correspondingly light oar ; his particular duties are to attend the line as it is 
hauled in and coiled in the stern -sheets, or when it is "paid out," and to bail the 
boat. The whole outfit of the boat has two general and rather indefinite names, 
"boat-gear" and "craft;" but the word "craft" applies particularly to the weapons 
immediately used in the capture. 
When the boat is lowered for the chase, the line (which is nicely coiled in 
the tub or tubs, as the case may be) is placed between the two after thwarts. 
The men being seated in their proper places, the line from the tub is taken aft 
around the loggerhead, then forward over the oars, and a few fathoms of it are 
coiled in the box of the boat; it is then termed a "box-warp." Two harpoons 
are placed at the head of the boat, the staves or poles of which rest in the "boat- 
crotch." The end of the box- warp is made fast to the "first iron;" the "second 
iron" is connected with the main line by a bowline in the end of a short -warp 
