188 ' ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



was in its prime. Thus, supposing these whales to 

 have been killed in that bay two hundred years 

 ago, allowing three fathoms (the very minimum) 

 for the ship to have anchored in, and adding the 

 ten feet which the bones are now above the sea- 

 level, we have twenty-eight feet of elevation in two 

 hundred years, or very nearly the same rate as I 

 have arrived at by the other example. 



The enormous numbers of whales which, in the 

 seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centu- 

 ries, frequented first the bays, next the coasts, and 

 lastly the banks lying outside the coasts of Spitz- 

 bergen, have now entirely deserted these waters alto- 

 gether. Nobody ever thinks of going to the neigh- 

 borhood of Spitsbergen now to catch whales. Dur- 

 ing the whole summer we only saw three individu- 

 als of the Mysticetus. M 'Culloch and other com- 

 mercial Avriters attribute this migration of the 

 whales to the persecution they underwent, saying 

 that they were all killed or frightened away ; but, 

 although their disappearance is undoubtedly par- 

 tially attributable to that cause, I believe the prin- 

 cipal reason to be that the seas around Spitzbergen 

 have become too shallow for them : this is the gen- 

 eral belief of the sealers frequenting the coast, only 

 they generally put the cart before the horse by say- 

 ing that "the sea is going back." 



I have heard the same remark made by the sail- 

 ors and fishermen on the west coast of Norway, 

 where Sir Charles Lyell ("Principles of Geology, ,, 



