200 : The Atlantic 



tion and be stirred by great ventures. Whaling had its romantic as- 

 pects. One of these was the vast scale on which whaling, of neces- 

 sity, had to be carried out. Those who signed on the crew list of a 

 whaler never knew how long a voyage was going to last or where it 

 was going to end. The whaleship was on a chase that followed the 

 whales wherever they might lead. It stayed at sea either until the 

 holds were full of oil or until the last pint of murky water had been 

 issued and the last crumb of moldy biscuit consumed. A single whal- 

 ing voyage might take the vessel from the Arctic to the Antarctic and 

 extend for several years. Under such conditions the whaling ship in 

 itself became a highly specialized and very intricate little world. This 

 little world was made up of the officers and crew, the ship and its 

 equipment. For long periods of time — perhaps for years — this ship 

 would be moving about the vast oceans, cut off from contact with all 

 the rest of the world and all of organized society. It would be entirely 

 dependent upon its own ingenuity and its own resources. The ship, 

 therefore, had to be stocked with all the food supplies that officers 

 and crew would need for long periods of time; with all the weapons, 

 tools and equipment needed for capturing the largest and most pow- 

 erful animal in the world. In addition to that, it had to be a traveling 

 factory for processing the whales it captured and reducing them to 

 commercial products such as oils, greases, waxes, whalebone, amber- 

 gris and ivory. On top of all this, the vessel had to be equipped also 

 to keep itself in operating condition; to build its casks for the storage 

 of oil; to repair its boats; to replace broken spars; to renew running 

 and standing rigging; to mend or replace its sails. 



The whaler had to face all the dangers of ordinary ocean travel — 

 hazards of rocks and reefs and unexpected shoals; of calms, of storms, 

 of hurricanes. In addition it had some special and augmented risks of 

 its own. One type of whale congregated at the margin of the Arctic 

 and Antarctic ice. Here was the blind uncertainty of fog and the 

 crushing uproar of berg and floe. Another type of whale traveled the 

 warm waters of the vast Pacific. Here were reefs and shoals and sav- 

 age natives. At any time and at any place the whaler had to be pre- 

 pared to hunt the whale even if the chase carried it into unlighted, 

 unknown, unvisited waters. In addition to this, week by week and 

 month by month the men had to face and conquer the great whale 

 himself. 



Whaling is not only a very widespread, dangerous and specialized 

 business, it is also a very old one. One of the earliest literary references 

 to whaling occurs in a record of a lengthy Arctic voyage of an old 



