COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 227 



Noman's Land, Gay Head, and Cuttyhunk. "Several first-class whalemen took a whaleboat, 

 with tow lines, harpoons, lances, bomb guns," and went in pursuit. Off Canapitset, a whale, 

 said to have been a Sulphurbottom, was shot with a bomb-lance, but immediately sank. A 

 Finback was shot near Cuttyhunk, but also sank. It was said that four in all were shot with 

 bomb-lances, but none was recovered (Forest and Stream, vol. 3, p. 188, Oct. 29, 1874). 

 But the Nantucketers were now passing to other pursuits, and when in 1876, a Finback was 

 reported near their shore, the Inquirer ' bemoaned the fact that there was "not a whale boat 

 and gear with which to pursue." 



On the North Shore, some fishermen in late October, 1870, captured a Finback about 

 ten miles off Gloucester, and towed it to Boston for exhibition. The oil which it finally yielded 

 was said to have been but six barrels. 2 



The year 1880 marks the revival of shore whaling in Massachusetts waters, and for some 

 fifteen years thereafter much profit was had from the capture of Finbacks and Humpbacks. 

 Must of the whaling was carried on from Provincetown, and the weapon used was generally 

 the bomb-lance fired from a shoulder gun. 



A. Howard Clark 3 relates that "early in March, 1880, there came into Provincetown 

 Bay and harbor immense quantities of herring and shrimps. They were followed by a great 

 number of Finback Whales, which were here most of the time in greater or less numbers until 

 about the middle of May, when they all left. During the time they were here many of them 

 were killed with bomb lances. They sank when killed and remained at the bottom some two 

 or three days. They then came up to the top of the water, and as they were liable to come 

 up in the night or during rugged weather, when the whalemen were not there to take them, 

 many of them drifted out to sea and were lost. Thirty-eight were brought in and landed at 

 Jonathan Cook's oil works on Long Point. The blubber was taken off and the oil extracted 

 from it in the above-named factory. Two others brought in were sold to parties who took 

 one of them to Boston and the other to New York, where they were exhibited, making forty 

 whales in all saved. Early in June immense quantities of sand eels (Ammodytes) came in our 

 harbor [Provincetown] and bay and remained here several days. About the 10th of Juno 

 there appeared plenty of whales, feeding on the sand eels. They were again attacked by our 

 men, when a number of them were killed in a few days, of which ten were saved and landed 

 at the oil works. Probably as many more that were not killed outright received their death 

 wounds and went out of the bay and soon after died and were lost. The forty-eight whales 

 delivered at the oil works yielded 950 barrels of oil, sold at an average price of 40 cents per 

 gallon." 







1 Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 57, no. 17, Oct. 21, 1876. 



1 Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 51, no. 20, Nov. 12, 1870. 



J Clark, A. Howard: in Goode's Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 2, p. 230. 



