The Whalers : 213 



whaler named William Scorsby, in 1806 reached a record farthest 

 north in the Spitsbergen region, and his son, William Scorsby, Jr., 

 published an account of the Arctic regions which became a classic 

 on this subject and, two years later, made the first extensive investi- 

 gations on the east coast of Greenland. 



In Antarctic waters we have seen already that an American whal- 

 ing and sealing expedition from Stonington, Connecticut, had its 

 ships in the South Shetland Islands in 1820. At this time N. B. 

 Palmer not only reported the Antarctic land mass but also visited it 

 in his tiny sloop Hero. The next season. Palmer, as captain of a 

 larger vessel, the sloop James Monroe, carried out an extensive cruise 

 along the Antarctic shores. 



In 1823 James Weddell took a whaling vessel into the Weddell Sea 

 area of the Antarctic. About this time also, a number of discoveries 

 in the Antarctic are accounted for by the enterprise and foresight of 

 a firm operating a number of whaling vessels. Captain Enderby in- 

 structed the captains of all of his ships, whenever they could do so, 

 to push their operations southward and to report their discoveries. 

 Under this policy Captain Biscoe discovered two islands — Biscoe and 

 Adelaide. He also discovered a part of the continent to which he gave 

 the name Enderby Land. A coast adjacent to Enderby Land was 

 added by Captain Kemp and Balenny added small islands. 



In the 1890's whaling ships were operating in the Antarctic undcf 

 the ownership of an old Norwegian whaler named Sven Foyen who 

 had developed a whaling gun. In 1893 one of his captains, C. A. Lar- 

 sen, in the Jason, discovered and named the Foyen coast in Green- 

 land; King Oscar Land; Mt. Chasen and Robertson Island. In 1895 

 Captain Leonard Kristiansen, operating another Foyen whaler, the 

 Antarctic, touched at Cape Adair, and the captain, together with 

 Carsten Borchgrevink and H. J. Hull, made the first landing on the 

 Antarctic continent. The same Borchgrevink, then in the Southern 

 Cross, in 1 898-1900 led the first party to spend a winter on the 

 Antarctic continent. 



So much for the cold-water whalers. The warm-water, or sperm 

 whale, fisheries scattered American ships in both the Atlantic and 

 the Pacific. In the Pacific many islands both large and small were 

 first seen and reported by vessels from the Atlantic coast of America. 

 Captain Edmund Fanning came from Stonington, Connecticut, and 

 thus grew up with N. B. Palmer. He provided an account of Palm- 

 er's discoveries in the Antarctic. His own contribution, however, was 

 discovering Fanning Island in the South Pacific in 1798. Wake, How- 



