YEARLY DESTRUCTION OF WHALES. 87 



in the summer season by their most formidable 

 enemy, man. He estimates that by three hun- 

 dred ships capturing or mortally wounding forty 

 whales each, twelve thousand whales are killed 

 in a season ; and as many of these, perhaps full 

 half, would probably be cows with calf, the 

 number of whales to be born and arrive at 

 maturity, in order to make up for this sweeping 

 destruction among them, must be not less than 

 eighteen thousand. He thinks, therefore, that 

 the poor whale, chased from sea to sea, and from 

 haunt to haunt, is doomed to utter extermina- 

 tion, or so near it, that too few will remain to 

 tempt the cupidity of man. 



The history of the sperm whale fishery, from 

 the first, when only five or six months were 

 necessary to complete a cargo upon the Brazil 

 ground, and fifteen upon that of Chili, to its 

 present almost entire abandonment as a separate 

 business, confirms this calculation. Before the 

 end of the present century, therefore, judging 

 from the past, is it not likely that the hunting 

 of whales on the sea will be any more prosecuted 

 as a commercial business, than the hunting of 



