OCEANIC MAMMALS 489 



was later developed by Foyn into a cannonlike weapon, 

 mounted at the bow of a small steamer, discharging a heavy 

 harpoon into the whale. A hawser, attached to the harpoon 

 and carried to steam winches on deck, enabled whalers to at- 

 tack successfully the various species of rorquals (finbacks, 

 humpbacks, blue and gray whales), most of them hitherto un- 

 molested since, on account of their swifter and more violent 

 actions, their thinner coating of blubber, and their short plates 

 of whalebone, they were less valuable and also it was 

 practically out of the question to kill them with ordinary 

 harpoons. This fishery had been first developed on the Nor- 

 wegian coasts, but at the end of the last century, with the 

 partial depletion of these areas, "whaling factories" were set 

 up in Newfoundland and in Antarctic waters. Capt. C. A. 

 Larsen, who in 1901 commanded the Swedish Antarctic Expe- 

 dition, on his return to Buenos Aires, founded the Compania 

 Argentina de Pesca, the first of modern whaling companies to 

 operate in the sub-Antarctic seas. Larsen saw thousands of 

 humpbacks off South Georgia in the southern summer and 

 abundance of blue whales. He returned to South Georgia in 

 the autumn of 1904 to begin intensive operations. In the 

 succeeding year he was followed by two other Norwegian 

 whalers, and the field was extended to the Straits of Magellan, 

 the Falkland Islands, and the South Shetlands. "The new 

 Antarctic industry was a success from the first, and it developed 

 with great rapidity. New companies were founded and con- 

 ducted their operations principally at South Georgia and the 

 South Shetlands. The size of the whale-catchers was increased 

 and the whaling plant was made more efficient. In 1910-11 the 

 total number of whales captured at South Georgia alone 

 reached the high figure of 6,529, of which 6,197 were Hump- 

 backs." Not only are the blubber oil and the body oil tried out 

 separately, but the flesh is then dried, ground and sacked for 

 fertilizer or for cattle feed, the bones are ground up for lime, 

 and other byproducts are utilized so that there is as little 

 waste to each carcass as possible. Most of the work is now in 

 the hands of Norwegian whalers, operating under license of the 

 government of the Falkland Islands. The number of whales 

 killed in the course of a year runs into large figures. In the 

 season of 1925-26, Harmer states, the total was 26,962, which 

 yielded an average of 43.8 barrels of oil apiece. In 1923 a new 



