THE WHALE FISHERY. 19 



of Greenland, where extensive fisheries were carried on by the European nations. These grounds 

 were not visited by vessels of the United States until within the past thirty years, and then only 

 in a few instances. The first American whaler sailing for Spitzbergen Sea was the ship Han- 

 nibal, Captain Royce, that left New London May 21, 1855, and returned March 21, 1856, with 

 only twenty-eight barrels of whale-oil. A second attempt was the voyage of the bark Tempest, 

 Captain Allyu, that left New London May 21, 1857. Captain Allyn states that he had under- 

 taken this voyage to the Spitzbergen regions by the advice of Hon. Thomas W. Williams, a 

 successful whaling agent, who furnished him with Scoresby's journals and information obtained 

 by correspondence with whaling agents in Scotland, setting forth the frequent appearance of 

 whales in the region of ocean north of Russia. During the month of July these seas were cruised 

 over by the Tempest, but, "although we sought diligently for whales," says Captain Allyn, "our 

 search was totally unsuccessful, and on the 9th of August we concluded to proceed to a more 

 congenial climate."* The vessel then cruised down through the North and South Atlantic 

 Oceans, round Cape of Good Hope, on to New Zealand, and thence to the Okhotsk Sea, and 

 after cruising with moderate success for two or three seasons in these waters returned to New 

 London in 1861. In 1865 a third attempt was made to establish an American fishery in these 

 seas, this time at Iceland by the bark Reindeer, of New York, principally for sulphur-bottom 

 whales. The first year's work was unsuccessful, and the second season resulted in such little 

 profit that the project -was abandoned. These three voyages are the only ones, so far as known, 

 that have been made by American whaling vessels to the oceans east of Greenland or north ot 

 Europe. 



The Russians and Norwegians carry on profitable whale fisheries, mostly for the fin-back, at 

 one or two points along the coasts of Norway and Finmark. One of these stations is on an island 

 in Varangar Fiord, opposite Wadso, in Finmark. In recent years a few Norwegian vessels have 

 visited Spitzbergen in search of whales, as in the season of 1873, when six vessels, with fifty-seven 

 men, were frozen in the ice at the island, and seventeen of the men perished before assistance 

 reached them. 



PACIFIC-ARCTIC GROUNDS. The fleet of whaling vessels cruisingnorth of 50 north latitude in 

 the waters between the Asiatic and the American coasts is called the North Pacific fleet. It has 

 been the most important branch of the American right- whaling fleet since 1835, when the famous 

 Kadiak ground, lying between latitude 50 and 60 north, was discovered. Here were taken only 

 the right whale, but in 1843 the fleet pushed farther north, and began capturing bowheads on the 

 Kamchatka coast. In 1848 a whaling vessel entered the Arctic in pursuit of these large animals 

 and met with good success. In 1839 there were only two vessels in the North Pacific fleet. From 

 that date to 1880 the total number of voyages made to these grounds by American vessels was 

 4,300, and the total catch of whale-oil (including oil of the right whale, bowhead, and walrus) was 

 3,994,397 barrels, or 60 per cent, of the total production of whale-oil by the American fleet in all 

 oceans during the same period. 



The North Pacific right and bowhead whale fishery has always been peculiarly an American 

 enterprise, very few foreign vessels having participated in it. The principal grounds were 

 discovered by American vessels between the years 1835 and 1848. The most important whaling 

 grounds for the bowhead in this region are Ihe Okhotsk Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The former 

 is at present of little importance, but few vessels having visited it during the past five or ten 

 years, nearly all of the fleet preferring the hazardous, though profitable, whaling in the Arctic. The 



The Old Sailor's Story, by Gurrton L. Allyji, 



