THE WHALEBONE WHALES OP THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 13 



proceeded to very high latitudes and on July 3d, 1616, was in Wolstenholme Sound, 

 to which he gave its present name. He writes thus of the whales : 



[July 3, 1616] : " This Sound wee called Wolstenholme Sound; it hath many 

 inlets or smaller sounds in it, and is a fit place for the killing of whales." 1 



The next day he explored and named Whale Sound, of which he writes : 



"In this Sound [July 4, 1616] we saw great numbers of whales, therefore 

 we called it Whale Sound, and doubtlesse, if we had beene provided for killing 

 of them, we might have strooke very many. It lyeth in the latitude 77 30'." 2 



HUDSON BAY. 



The narratives of Hudson's (1610), Baffin's (1612-1616), Button's (1612), and 

 Munck's (1619) voyages contain nothing regarding whales in Hudson Bay and Strait. 

 A passing reference is to be found in the account of Fox's voyage of 1631, as follows : 



[1631. CAPTAIN LUKE FOX IN HUDSON BAY.] 



" Fox obeyed his instructions, though he evidently entertained an opinion 

 that this [*'. e., Roe's Welcome northward] was the fittest part to search for the 

 passage ; ' being moved by the high flowing of the tyde and the whales, for all the 

 tydes that floweth that bay [Hudson Bay], commeth (neere) from thence.' " 3 



Captain Coats's Remarks on the Geography of Hudson's Bay, from voyages 

 between 1727 and 1751, contains the following: 



" Near Whale Cove and Brook Cobham, it is agreed on all hands, their are 

 such sholes of whales and scales, as is no where else to be met with in the known 

 world." 4 



NEWFOUNDLAND AND THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE. 



It is sometimes asserted that the Basques, who undoubtedly hunted the Right 

 whale, Bal&na Mscayensis, on the coasts of Europe in the Middle Ages, finally 

 crossed to Newfoundland in pursuit of their quarry at a period antedating Colum- 

 bus's discovery. Thus, P. Fischer in 1872, in his account of the Basque whale 

 fishery, writes : " When the Basques had destroyed the whales which arrived in 



1 The Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622. Ed. by C. R. Markham. Hakluyt Soc., 1881, 

 p. 144. From Purchas. Written by Baffin. 



a Op. cit., p. 145. Ross also found whales in this vicinity in 1818, but Southwell regards both 

 these instances as exceptional, and thinks it improbable that the Greenland whale (B. mysticetui) 

 commonly passes beyond 75 n. lat. (Nat. Sci., 12, 1898, p. 408.) 



' Voyages towards the Northwest. Ed. by Thomas Rundall. Hakluyt Soc., 1849, p. 177. Abst. 

 from N. W. Foxe. 



' Hakluyt Soc., 1852, p. 29. 



