WHALES AND WHALING 



The modern whaler is very different from anything we 

 have yet considered. First, there is the stout three to 

 five hundred ton vessel, with her crew of about fifty 

 hands, her six or eight double-pointed rowing boats, 

 thirty feet long, and manned by six; her seventy-five 

 horse-power engine, with her armoury of windlasses, 

 boilers, oil-tank (built to hold nearly three hundred tons 

 of oil), and her general workmanlike turn-out. And 

 secondly, there is the boat beloved of the Norwegian and 

 American whalers a still more business-like craft ; a fast 

 hundred-ton twin screw, as obedient as a steam yacht, 

 with an elaborate look-out forward, and one of the most 

 deadly inventions of our day the harpoon-gun rigged 

 up in her bows. 



The first may be seen setting off from Dundee for a 

 two-year cruise in the Antarctic regions ; and a very 

 gambling prospect she has before her. In 1895 a Dundee 

 boat, the Arctic, came home from a short trip with ten 

 whales, which meant five tons of whalebone, at that time 

 worth ten thousand pounds, as well as twenty thousand 

 gallons of oil. Recent scarcity of Antarctic whales has, 

 of course, tremendously increased the value of the catches 

 to such an extent, in fact, that whalebone, which fifty 

 years ago sold at the rate of a shilling a pound, is now 

 worth about thirty times that amount. 



The second kind of boat, which in a few years is 

 destined to drive most other whalers out of the field, may 

 be seen to the best advantage south of Greenland. 

 Watch her as she routs out a cachalot or a fin-back. As 

 before, the whale heralds his appearance by roars and 



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