250 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 



These discoveries led to a rapid increase of the British whal- 

 ing fleet, and vessels were fitted out from the ports of Hull, 

 Dundee, Kirkcaldy, Peterhead, Fraserburg and Aberdeen. 



The introduction of steamships in the early sixties, and the 

 combination of the whale fishery with the sealing industry of 

 Newfoundland and eastern Greenland, led to further increases 

 in the fleet, which, in 1868, totalled thirty steam and sailing 

 vessels as follows : Dundee, 13 steam and 1 sailing ship ; Peter- 

 head, 4 steam and 8 sailing ships ; Fraserburg, 2 sailing ships ; 

 Aberdeen, 1 sailing ship ; Hull, 1 steamship. This was the last 

 year in which ships sailed from Hull; since then the British 

 whaling fleet has been from Scotch ports only. Steam soon alto- 

 gether replaced sails, so that in 1877 only the former was 

 employed. The fleet at that time had been reduced to thirteen 

 vessels, all sailing from the port of Dundee. No new ships have 

 been built during the past twenty-five years, and the construc- 

 tion of these strong oak vessels, sheathed with greenheart or 

 ironbark, is fast becoming a lost art in these days of steel and 

 iron ships. The Dundee fleet is now reduced to five, without 

 much prospect of their being replaced by British-built ships. 

 The future ships of the whaling fleet will probably be Norwe- 

 gian-built. Four of the above vessels were, in 1904, whaling 

 in Baffin bay, the fifth was in Hudson bay. 



The American whalers did not attempt Arctic whaling until 

 1846, and have since confined their operations to the waters on 

 the west side of Davis strait ( Cumberland gulf and southward) 

 and to those of Hudson strait and Hudson bay. 



The American ships have always been sailing vessels, and the 

 American methods differ considerably from those of the Scotch 

 whalers, the chief difference being that their ships are provi- 

 sioned for two years, and remain one or two winters in the 

 north on each voyage. Americans were the first to erect perma- 

 nent stations in the eastern Arctics. 



