j52 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



Whalebone has continued in good demand during the year, although at low prices, the prices ranging from 65 

 cents, gold, early in the year, to 79 cents, gold, in October, when the ten months' sales having more than aggregated 

 our imports, and the disastrous Arctic news having come to hand, holders being few in number, put their prices to 

 $2 per pound. Sales were made of South Sea at $1.70 and Arctic at $1.75 $1.85, and the year closed with a stock of 

 290,000 pounds, held at $1.90 @ $2. There can be no import of bone in 1872 except of South Sea and Cumberland, 

 and possibly an early arrival of Arctic, all nncaught as yet. 



There has been a large reduction in our small whaling fleet, and of the thirty-four vessels now in port half are for 

 sale, and some to arrive will probably change hands before being fitted again. Could present prices be assured for three 

 years to come probably nearly every vessel would go to sea, but with the uncertainty in prices, partly from substi- 

 tutes and low prices of them, only good prices can be hoped for and not counted upon. There were no whalers in 

 Ochotsk Sea or on Kodiac last season. The Arctic fleet had done well up to the time of their having been lost ; 

 whales were plenty and the prospects good for a large average. The oil abandoned with the ships was about 12,000 

 barrels, and about 100,000 pounds of bone. The natives were at work saving the bone when last seen, and it 

 is expected that by trading with them that at least 50,000 pounds may be got of them within three years. It is not 

 improbable that some of the ships may be found near where abandoned, but not at a time nor in such condition as to 

 make it an object to save them. The salvors would hardly expect to save more than half to themselves of the 

 property recovered, and good whaling would offer better results. 



The Atlantic fishery has been a fair one to the small fleet cruising there. The weather has been rugged late in the 

 season. The best catch was made by the Commodore Morris, of New Bedford, 1,200 barrels sperm oil in nineteen 

 months, 550 barrels this season ; others have done well. The South Atlantic fleet have done well sperm whaling and 

 hnmpbacking. The fleet took 3,000 barrels humpback oil on the coast of Africa. The Nautilus, of New Bedford, 

 took 800 barrels, the best catch. 



The'Indian Ocean and Crozettes have furnished nothing extraordinary ; nor have the Soolo Sea and New Holland 

 given their usual share of oil. The New Zealand fleet has done well tperm whaling and humpbacking, nearly 5,000 

 barrels of humpback oil having been taken on Brampton Shoals; the Cleone, of New Bedford, having taken 1,000 

 barrels. The West Coast whaling has been only fair sperm whaling, while in humpbacking some good cuts have 

 been made, aggregating nearly 5,000 barrels. Panama Bay was alive with humpbacks in the season of them, and one 

 coast whaler took 1,000 barrels. Margueritta Bay has not been visited, though in former years it furnished great 

 attractions to our Arctic fleet between seasons. 



Hudson Bay and Cumberland Inlet has barely sustained its average, though the Ansel Gibbs, of New Bedford, 

 returned with 1,300 barrels of oil and 22.000 pounds of bone the only good catch, and paying one, and perhaps the 

 best paying one of the year in its percentage. The Scotch Greenland fishery was very successful ; they report some 

 catches of 2,000 barrels to a vessel steamers. 



The Desolation voyages have been a sharer with all the other kinds of whaling in having loss oil taken and less 

 price received than the owners found profitable. The year in a general view outside the Arctic disaster, which was 

 unforeseen and unexpected, has been fully as discouraging as any former, and If extreme prices, caused by our loss, do 

 not raise up enemies to our future interest in substitutes, then we may hope for better days to those whose courage 

 keeps them in the way of whaling because they believe we shall see a return of prosperity in this branch of creative 

 industry. 



The promptness with which the Commercial Mutual Marine and Union Mutual Marine Insurance Companies have 

 had their resources reinforced by stock notes, the former by $110,000 and the latter by $300,000, shows that our pres- 

 ent and former owners in whaling, who have come to the rescue to replenish the enormous losses by the Arctic disaster, 

 believe in a future of whaling, if not as extensive as in the past at least partially as remunerative. 



TRADE REVIEW FOR 1872. 



Review of ih whale fishery for 1872. The year just closed has been but a continuance of the former one in results, 

 few prizes and many blanks. With a small and steadily declining fleet, we have been unable to proportionately gain 

 in average quantity of oil taken or in reaching more satisfactory results. Those who began the year with the inten- 

 tion of selling whalers have seen nothing so encouraging in the business as to induce them to change their minds, 

 and though only seven of the fourteen ships then for sale were sold during the year, yet others since arrived have 

 been sold, and we have now at home ports some seventeen more good whaleships known to be for sale, their owners 

 not intending to fit them again. The great loss of whalers in the Arctic in 1871 has been followed by the sale of 

 twenty and loss of four whalers in 1872, exclusive of ships that have changed hands in the business, and still we begin 

 the year 1873 with about one-third of the whalers at home ports for sale, or about seventeen out of forty-eight vessels. 

 The continued purpose to sell whalers after so great a depletion in little more than a ycur shows the judgment of 

 those who have long and successful^ been engaged in the business, viz, that it has become too hazardous, and its 

 results too uncertain to continue it, when capital is promised a safer employment and surer rewards in enterprises 

 on the land, and in our own city, where the products of two large cotton mills equal very nearly the aggregate value 

 of the imports of the fishery yearly. There are those who think that the Arctic whaling will be given up in a few 

 yean because of the perils attendant on whaling there, where ice has to be encountered, with extreme cold and severe 

 storms, and from which causes shipwrecks and damage to hulls are very common. This view is confirmed by the 

 recent action of our insurance companies in charging 3 per cent, extra each season on whalers visiting that ocean, ( 

 itep long contemplated but now felt necessary by the insuiance companies. 



