REMARKABLE EVENTS. 199 



in the fishing, where a Greenland whale was at 

 last killed which had drawn out ten thousand 

 four hundred and forty yards, or about six miles 

 of line, attached to eight harpoons, besides 

 taking one boat entirely under water, which took 

 above three thousand yards of line, disappeared 

 and was never again seen, the harpoon by 

 which it was held to the whale probably drawing 

 out under the immense pressure, and leaving it 

 to sink. 



But the most dreadful display of the whale's 

 strength and prowess, yet authentically recorded, 

 was that made upon the American whale-ship 

 Essex, Captain Pollard, which sailed from 

 Nantucket for the Pacific Ocean in August, 

 1819. Late in the fall of the same year, when 

 in latitude 40 of the South Pacific, a school 

 of sperm whales were discovered, and three 

 boats were manned and sent in pursuit. The 

 mate's boat was struck by one of them, and he 

 was obliged to return to the ship in order to re- 

 pair the damage. 



While he was engaged in that work, a sperm 

 whale, judged to be eighty-five feet long, broke 



