Harpoons, Lances, Guns, and Boats 2^7 



When the harpoon is placed in the bore of the 

 gun, the ring slides to the head of the harpoon. 

 When the gun is fired, the harpoon carries the 

 ring with the line trailing away behind. If the 

 gunner fails to hit the whale, or if the first har- 

 poon fails to kill the animal, other harpoons 

 are at hand ready for more shots as opportunity 

 may offer. On the coast of Norway and in the 

 Iceland waters the harpoon guns, as invented 

 by Foyn, are popular. Foyn himself made a for- 

 tune using his own gun. On the Pacific coast 

 of the United States the Greener gun has been 

 used. The range of these swivel guns is placed 

 as high as 84 yards. In America, however, 

 the harpoons thus used had no bomb attached. 

 The bombs are fired from another kind of gun. 



In 1847 the following, from the Nantucket En- 

 quirer, went the rounds of the newspapers printed 

 in the Atlantic ports: 



"We saw yesterday at the store of Captain 

 E. W. Gardner a very curious contrivance for 

 killing whales. It is a short gun weighing some 

 twenty-five pounds the stock being of solid 

 brass from which a harpoon is to be fired into 



