226 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



which usually sinks at once on being killed, the carcass might not appear for two or three 

 days until buoyed to the surface by the accumulated gases of decomposition. This style of 

 bomb-lance met with great favor among the Cape Cod whalers and later was much used in 

 shore whaling. 



In early July, 1854, the schooner William P. Dolliver sailed from Nantucket for a short 

 whaling cruise on the Shoals. When a little distance outside Nantucket bar, the whalers 

 saw a large Finback so close at hand that the bomb-lance was shot into it from the schooner's 

 deck, killing the animal at once. It sank in seven fathoms of water, but was raised with 

 grapplings procured from the shore, and later towed with the schooner back to the harbor by 

 the steamer Massachusetts. It was thought that the blubber would yield sixty or seventy 

 barrels of oil, worth in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars. 1 This would indicate a large 

 whale, or a large estimate. The incident is further of interest as indicating that at this 

 time the pursuit of whales, probably Humpbacks and Finbacks, was undertaken in a small 

 way on the Shoals, and was probably made much more profitable through the introduction of 

 the whaling gun with its explosive lance. 



The Nantucket Inquirer of November 21st, 1855 (vol. 37, no. 137) notes that several 

 Finbacks had of late been seen in Provincetown Harbor, and that on the 17th of that month 

 a single one had appeared, and immediately became an object of pursuit by some fifteen boats, 

 hastily manned. "About thirty minutes after he was first seen, he was struck by a harpoon 

 from one of the boats, when he immediately commenced running, dragging the boat and nearly 

 filling it with water, but in some manner he cleared himself." Evidently, from this account, 

 the use of the bomb-lance had not yet become universal. 



Two years later, we learn from the same source 2 that about the middle of April, 1857, 

 "there was fine sport in Provincetown on Monday last with boats pursuing Finback Whales. 

 Two of them were harpooned, but the rapid movement of this species of whale, does not suffer 

 them to be taken in this way. They are now taken with a bomb-lance, or a lance which is 

 fitted with a charge of powder, to explode after it enters the whale." A similar incident is 

 related in December, 1872, when a Finback appeared in Provincetown Harbor, and was har- 

 pooned by Captain Isaac Fisher. Although it received three lance thrusts, it finally parted 

 the line and escaped. 3 Again in late October, 1868, a boat's crew put off from Nantucket in 

 pursuit of four Finbacks, seen in the bay, but after following them for some miles to the west- 

 ward, was obliged to relinquish the chase. 4 In the latter half of October, 1874, "large schools 

 of whales," probably Finbacks for the most part, were seen in Vineyard Sound, and from 



1 Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 34, no. 80, July 7, 1854. 



2 Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 30, no. 41, Apl. 20, 1857. 



3 Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 53, no. 24, Dec. 14, 1872. 



4 Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 49, no. 18, Oct. 31, 1808. 



