INTRODUCTION 



and later entered the sealing fleet where he eventually 

 made considerable money. It was while sealing that 

 he conceived the idea of capturing the fin whales with 

 a bomb-harpoon, and 360,000 kronen were spent in 

 experimenting before he succeeded in building a suit- 

 able gun and vessel. 



In 1864 he went to Finmark for the first time in 

 the small ship Spes et Fides, but caught nothing and 

 was equally unsuccessful in the two following years. 

 In 1867 ne secured the first whales at Vardo, in Va- 

 rangerfjord, and the next season killed 30. In 1869 

 he went north \vith two ships but got only 17 whales, 

 and in 1870 only 36. It was in this year that at 

 Kirkeo the first factory for converting whale flesh 

 into guano, or fertilizer, was built and successfully 

 operated. Foyn's best years were between 1871 and 

 1880, when 506 whales were killed, having a value of 

 about 2,000,000 kronen. 



In 1877 a competitive company began work in 

 Jar fjord, and in 1881 two others started at Vardo 

 and two in West Finmark near the North Cape. In 

 1882 Norway had 8 companies and 12 ships, and five 

 years later 20 companies and 35 ships. In 1890 the 

 whales began to show the effect of continual perse- 

 cution, decreasing rapidly in numbers, and five com- 

 panies shifted their operations to Iceland. In 1896 

 the 1 8 ships hunting there killed 792 whales, yielding 

 49,500 barrels of oil; in the same season 29 ships 

 off the Finmark coast caught 1,212 whales. 



From the very beginning the Norwegian fishermen 

 were hostile to the shore whalers, for they believed 



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