WHALE FISHERY. 1 1 1 



Since the year 1790, the trade from London, and the other parts of the 

 kingdom, and the number of whale ships have been greatly reduced. So 

 great was the consumption of whalebone in England, that it is said that 

 more than 100,000 annually was paid to the Dutch for several years. 

 The first blow to the trade was abolishing the fashion of wearing those 

 frightful looking things, called " Hooped Petticoats," the users of which 

 Pope ridiculed as 



" Stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale ;" 





 the use of gas lights still further depressed the trade in oil. 



The crew of a whaler consists of a Master, Surgeon, and forty or fifty 

 men, who are divided into several classes, as, harpooners, boat steerers, 

 line managers, carpenters, coopers, &c. She is commonly provided with 

 six or seven boats, which, as affording the principal means by which the 

 fishery is to be carried on, are hung round her in such a manner, as to 

 admit of being detached and launched with the greatest possible 

 expedition. After the whale is killed and cut up, the bone and blubber 

 are stowed in the ship, but the attack upon the animal, and all the 

 operations of its capture and destruction, are carried on in the boat. 

 The chief instruments with which every boat is provided, are two 

 harpoons, and six or eight lances. The harpoon is made wholly of iron, 

 and is about three feet in length; it consists of a shank, with a barbed 

 head, each barb, or wither as it is called, having an inner or smaller barb 

 in a reverse position. This instrument is attached by the shank to a 

 line or rope of about two inches and a quarter in circumference, and 120 

 fathoms in length. Each boat is furnished with six of these lines, 

 making in all 720 fathoms, or 4320 feet. The use of the harpoon, 

 which is commonly projected from the hand, but sometimes forms a sort 

 of gun, is merely to strike or hook the fish : it is by the lance that its 

 destruction is accomplished. This is a spear of the length of six feet, 

 consisting principally of a stock or handle of fir, fitted with a steel head, 

 which is made very thin, and exceedingly sharp. 



The lance is not flung from the hand like a harpoon, but held fast, as 

 it is thrust into the body of the animal. 



The common Greenland whale ( ' Balcena mysticelusj is not unusually 

 08 or 60 feet in length, by 30 or 40 in circumference : this gives a 

 weight of about 70 tons, equal to 200 fat oxen. Captain Scoresby 

 (Journal of a voyage to the Northern "Whale Fishery, 1820) says, that 

 of 322 whales, in the capture of which he was personally connected, no 



