[13] FISHEKIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



should cut its way both in and out of the flesh. This instrument, which 

 has been superseded by the bomb-lance, was always manipulated by the 

 officer of the boat. The bow oarsman, by means of the main warp as well 

 as by main strength, hauled the boat alongside the running whale, and 

 the officer thrust the lance into the region of the heart and lungs, called 

 the "life," of the cetacean, and by up and down motions, known as 

 " churning," inflicted the mortal wound. 



Notwithstanding that the explosive lance has i^ractically done away 

 with the use of the hand-lance, three of these instruments are at pres- 

 ent always included in the outfit of a whale-boat, to be used in cases of 

 emergency. 



In this class should be mentioned the "fluke-lance" (56358), an ille- 

 gitimate offspring of the thick boat- spade and the hand-lance, which 

 was devised to take the place of the former during the dangerous pro- 

 cess of " spading flukes," for stopping a running whale, in order that 

 the boat may be hauled alongside the animal and an opportunity afforded 

 for killing it with the hand-lance. I have been able to obtain only one 

 example of the fluke-spade, which owes its origin to the fancy of a 

 whaleman, and is regarded as a monstrosity by all the fraternity. 



The seal lances, which may also be employed in killing the sea-elephant 

 and walrus, but never used in whaling, on account of the short shanks, 

 should also be grouped under this head. Such instruments have heads 

 of varying sizes, and the ordinary shanks which terminate at the rear 

 in sockets for the poles. They are thrust by hand, and are employed 

 at present. 



Friderich Martens, in his account of a whaling voyage to Spitzbergen, 

 in 1671, describes as follows the method adopted by the early Dutch 

 whalemen for the capture of the sea-horse, or sea-morse: "When great 

 multitudes of them lie upon a sheet of ice, and they do awake and fling 

 themselves into the sea, you must keep off your boat at a distance from 

 the ice until the greater part of them are got off ,• for else they would 

 lump into the boat to you and overset it, whereof many instances have 

 been ; then the harpoonier runs after them on the ice, or he darts his 

 harpoon out of the boat at the sea-horse, who runs on a little until he 

 is tired ; then the men draw on the rope or line again and fetch him to 

 the boat, where he begins to resist to the utmost, biting and jumping 

 out of the water, and the harpoonier runs his launce into him until he 

 is killed."* 



The Hand-Lance with explosive Head. — The hand-lance with a 

 non-explosive head remained for nearly two centuries the solitary type 

 of this kind of whaling apparatus, technically known to the whalemen 

 as " craft." On March 26, 1878, Daniel Kelleher, of New Bedford, Massa- 

 chusetts, received letters-patent for an instrument, to be used as a hand- 

 lance, which, being operated by a mechanical device coming in contact 

 with the blackskin of the whale, should automatically explode the mag- 



* Hakluyt Society, vol. 18, p. 89. 



