WHALE FISHERY WHARTON. 



situations for the prosecution of their business. 

 The sea in Davis's straits is less incommoded with 

 field ice than the Greenland and Spitzbergen seas ; 

 but it abounds with icebergs, and the fishery is more 

 dangerous. 



France has, of late years, had little share in the 

 whale fishery. In 1784, Louis XVI. fitted out six 

 ships, on his own account, which were furnished 

 with harpooners, and a number of seamen from 

 Nantucket. In 1790, there were about forty French 

 ships employed in the fishery, which was destroyed 

 by the wars of the French revolution. Since the 

 peace, the government has attempted to revive it, 

 but with little success. 



The whale fishery has been carried on with greater 

 vigour and success from the United States of Ame- 

 rica, than from any other country. It was begun 

 by the colonists on their own shores at a very early 

 period ; but, the whale having abandoned them, 

 the American navigators entered with extraordinary 

 ardour into the fisheries in the Northern and South- 

 ern oceans, from about the middle of the eighteenth 

 century. From 1771 to 1775, Massachusetts em- 

 ployed annually 183 vessels, of 13,820 tons in the 

 northern, and 121 vessels, of 14,026 tons, in the 

 southern fishery. These were the first to prose- 

 cute the fishery in the southern Atlantic, on the 

 coasts of Africa and Brazil, and led the way into 

 the Pacific seas. " Look at the manner," says 

 Burke (1774,) " in which the New England people 

 carry on the whale fishery. While we follow them 

 among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold 

 them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses 

 of Hudson's bay and DaVis's straits ; while we are 

 looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear 

 that they have pierced into the opposite region of 

 polar cold ; that they are at the antipodes, and en- 

 gaged under the frozen Serpent of the South. Falk- 

 land island, which seemed too remote and too ro- 

 mantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, 

 is but a stage and resting-place for their victorious 

 industry. Nor is the equinoctial beat more dis- 

 couraging to them than the accumulated winter of 

 both the poles. We learn that, while some of 

 them draw the line or strike the harpoon on the 

 coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and pur- 

 sue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil." 

 These are the seas that are still vexed by the Ame- 

 rican fisheries, which have been pushed, however, 

 into higher southern latitudes than had ever before 

 been visited, and are carried on from the shores of 

 Japan to the icy rocks of New South Shetland. 

 (See South Polar Islands.)* They have been prin- 

 cipally carried on from Nantucket and New Bed- 

 ford, and have proved very lucrative. At present, 

 they are also prosecuted with great success from 

 several other places. One class of ships is fitted 

 out for the Pacific in pursuit of the spermaceti 

 whale. These are from 300 to 500 tons' burthen, 

 carrying from twenty-five to thirty men, and are 

 absent about thirty to thirty-six months. Their 

 number is about 170, of about 62,000 tons, and 

 carrying nearly 5000 men. Another class sail to 

 the coasts of Africa and Brazil, in search of the 

 common or right whale. They average about 325 

 tons each, carry about twenty-five men, and are 

 absent eight to twelve months. * The whole amount 



* The seas visited by the Americans are, in many parts, little 

 known ; the currents'are unoertain, and the seamen have had 

 to construct their own maps and charts. Yrt shipwrecks have 

 been rare. Two men are always kept at the mast-head on the 

 liK>k-out for land or breakers. 



1 of tonnage of this class is about 40,000 ; ^number 

 of seamen engaged, 3000. The quantity of sperm 

 oil brought home in 1815, was 3944 barrels ; in 

 1820, 34,700; in 1825, 62,240, and, in 1830, 

 106,800. The quantity of whale or black oil 

 brought in in 1830, was about 115,000 barrels; of 

 whalebone, about 120,000 pounds. The sperm oil 

 is chiefly used at home ; and 2,500,000 pounds ot 

 sperm candles are made, employing about thirty 

 manufactories. The whale oil and whalebone are 

 chiefly exported to Europe. See an article in tin- 

 Foreign Quarterly Review (No. 14), by J. R. Mar- 

 Culloch, and Scoresby's Voyage to the Northern 

 Whale Fishery (Edinburgh, 1823), and his Arctic 

 Regions. 



WHALEBONE ; a substance of the nature of 

 horn, adhering, in thin parallel plates, to the upper 

 jaw of the whale. These laminte vary, in size, from 

 three to twelve feet in length ; the breadth of the 

 largest, at the thick end, where they are attached 

 to the jaw, is about a foot. They are extremely 

 elastic. All above six feet in length is called aiza 

 bone. 



WHARTON, THOMAS, marquis of, an English 

 statesman, was one of the first persons of distinc- 

 tion who joined William III. on his arrival in Eng- 

 land, and by that prince was made a privy counsel- 

 lor and justice in Eyre, south of the Trent. Queen 

 Anne created him earl of Wharton ; and in 1709, 

 he was sent as viceroy to Ireland ; but the follow- 

 ing year he resigned all his employments. Being a 

 zealous whig and firm supporter of the Hanoverian 

 succession, he was favoured by George I., who 

 raised him to the rank of marquis. He died in 

 1715. 



WHARTON, PHILIP, duke of, son of the pre- 

 ceding, was born in 1699. He displayed, wlu-n 

 quite young, talents which attracted notice ; and, 

 having been educated under domestic tutors, at the 

 age of fourteen he married clandestinely, to the 

 great disappointment of his father, whose death 

 shortly after left him at liberty to follow his own 

 inclinations. In 1716, he set out on his travels, 

 for the purpose of finishing his studies at Geneva. 

 But, disgusted with the sober manners of that, 

 place, he left his governor there, and went to 

 Lyons, and afterwards to the court of the Pretender 

 at Avignon. That prince, highly gratified by his 

 attentions, gave him the title of duke of Northum- 

 berland. About the end of 1716, he returned to 

 England, and thence proceeding to Ireland, where 

 he possessed a peerage, he was allowed to take his 

 seat in the Irish house of peers. He then displayed 

 the versatility of his character by defending, with all 

 the powers of reasoning and eloquence, the estab- 

 lished government; in consequence of which be 

 obtained a dukedom. On attaining the age of ma- 

 jority, he made his appearance in the English par- 

 liament, where he pursued a line of political con- 

 duct diametrically opposite to that which he had 

 lately exhibited ; distinguishing himself as the 

 warm defender of bishop Atterbury, impeached as 

 an adherent to the house of Stuart. He also pub- 

 lished a virulent opposition paper, called the True 

 Briton. Having impoverished himself by extrava- 

 gance, his estates were, by a decree in chancery, 

 vested in the hands of trustees ; and he retired to 

 the continent, and visited Vienna and Madrid. Af- 

 ter practising new intrigues, deceiving, by the levity 

 of his conduct, the Spanish court, and the chevalier 

 de St George, and rendering himself contemptible 

 alike to all parties, he deprived himself of all his 



