CHAPTER XXVI 

 THE PASSING OF THE WHALE 



THE world hunt for the whale began a thousand 

 years ago in the Bay of Biscay and it bids fair 

 to end ere the close of the twentieth century. 



After the extermination of the North Atlantic right 

 whale on the coast of Spain, the hunters pushed north- 

 ward to Finland and Iceland, and it is even possible 

 that whalers visited Newfoundland long before Colum- 

 bus saw American shores. 



The relentless warfare to which the right whale was 

 subjected for hundreds of years culminated in the 

 sixteenth century, and only stopped short of actual ex- 

 termination through the discovery, in the far north, 

 of its larger and more valuable relative, the bowhead. 

 Then the right whale dropped from sight, supposedly 

 being extinct, and although it appeared again a hun- 

 dred years later, it has never recovered from the effects 

 of its early persecution. 



The capture of the bowhead began in 1612 in the 

 open waters between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and 

 soon extended to Davis Strait and Baffin Bay. After 

 two hundred years of unceasing pursuit this whale 

 was driven to the remotest parts of the Arctic Ocean 

 and was so nearly exterminated that now, when north- 



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