2i6 : The Atlantic 



ancestor of the one that you can see in the museums today. 



The classic type of whaHng began to decline after the middle of 

 the nineteenth century. Costs rose, prices declined, cheap kerosene 

 or coal oil came in to replace whale oil and paraffin candles replaced 

 spermaceti candles. 



Whaling has not entirely ceased but it has become a highly mech- 

 anized industry requiring enormous capital. Permanent whaling sta- 

 tions have been established in Antarctic waters. Great powered 

 steamers have been built that are good examples of floating factories. 

 They are attended by a score of smaller steamers who do the actual 

 hunting. Some of the factory steamers are contrived so that they can 

 swallow up a whale in a great mouth built into the bows of the ves- 

 sel. In the hold of the factory vessel a number of divided operations 

 provide that every ounce of the whale that can yield a few cents' 

 worth of value shall be utilized. 



Was whaling more a business or more a sport.? I do not know the 

 answer to that question though I am sure it had some features of 

 both. Whether played for gain or for game it was grim. Nearly every 

 dangerous trade that I know of has, at some time, been practiced by 

 one or more amateurs. I can think of no case of an amateur whale- 

 man. The genial and learned Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy of the 

 American Museum came as near as anyone has ever come to being 

 an amateur whaler. He made a whaling voyage but he did so in 

 pursuit of his profession of being an ornithologist and naturalist. 

 Whatever his rating, he has, in recently publishing his Log BooJ^ for 

 Grace, provided us with a fascinating account of a young man's 

 experiences on one of the last of the old whaling ships. 



American whaling began in the time of the first colonists but 

 extended into our own day. It provided America with one of its first 

 industries and materials for international trade. American whaling 

 was based on old and general Atlantic patterns but after 1743, when 

 the Massachusetts whalemen began to install furnaces and trypots in 

 their vessels, longer cruises and larger vessels ensued and the char- 

 acteristic American whaler took form. These whalers appearing in 

 London opened up trade not only in whale oil but in many other 

 commodities also. Nearly all whalers, European as well as American, 

 were built in Atlantic ports even though they were to operate in the 

 Arctic, Antarctic or Pacific fisheries. The whalers discovered count- 

 less islands in the Pacific, a few of which have been claimed by 

 America and utilized, and whalers early carried the American flag 

 and American prestige around the world. 



