THE WHALE FISHERY. 



195 



" However this may be, it is certain that the English and Dutch northeast voyages gave origin 

 to a whale fishery in the sea round Spitsbergen, which increased by many millions the national 

 wealth of these rich commercial states. The fishing went on at first immediately along the coasts, 

 from which, however, the whales were soon driven, so that the whale fishers had to seek new fishing 

 grounds, first farther out to sea, between jSpitzbergen and Greenland, then in Davis Strait, and 

 finally in the South Polar Sea, or in the sea on both sides of Behring Strait. 



" Spitzbergen, when the whale fishing ceased in its neighborhood, was mostly abandoned, 

 until the Eussiaus began to settle there, principally for the hunting of the mountain fox and the 

 reindeer. Of their hunting voyages we know very littlerbuLthat they had been widely prosecuted 

 is shown by the remains of their dwellings or huts on nearly all the fjords of Spitzbergen. They 

 seem to have often wintered, probably because the defective build of their vessels only permitted 

 them to sail to and from Spitzbergeu during the height of summer, and they could not thus take 

 part without wintering in the autumn hunting, during which the fattest reindeer are got; nor 

 could the thick and valuable fur of the winter fox be obtained without wintering. But the hunt- 

 ing voyages of the Eussians to Spitzbergen have also long ceased. The last voyage thither took 

 place in 1851-'52, and had a very unfortunate issue for most of those who took part in it, twelve 

 men dying out of twenty. On the other hand, the Norwegian voyages to Spitzbergen for the seal 

 and walrus hunting, begun in the end of the last century, still go on."* 



NORWAY. 



About the year 1864 Capt. Sveud Foyn, of Tonsberg, established a whaling station on a small 

 island in the Varanger Fiord in Finmark. The whales were captured with harpoons thrown from 

 a .swivel gun expressly constructed for the purpose, and mounted at the bow of a small steamer. 

 This harpoon was charged at the lower eud with an explosive ball that burst when the harpoon 

 had penetrated the flesh, and killed the animal instantly. From the first this enterprise proved 

 successful, and about 25 similar stations have since been started at different places on the 

 Finmark coast, east and west of North Cape.t 



* Voyage of the Vega, translated by Alexander Leslie, 1881, vol. i, pp. 291-293. 



t Capt, Niels Jnel, in a letter to Prof. S. F. Baird dated Bergen, Norway, September 22, 1884, gives the following 

 information about the whale fishery of Norway: 



"The whale fishery began in 1804 and was carried on till 1869 by a single company with one steamer, and from 

 that date t.ll 1877 by two steamers, belonging to the same company. In 1877 the number of companies increased to 

 two, in 1881 to five, in 1882 to eight, employing twelve steamers, aud in 1883 to fourteen, with twenty-three steamers. 

 Of these companies eleven are in Ostfmmarken, east of Cape North, and three in Vestfinmarken, between Cape North 

 and the town of Hammerfest. The catch has been as follows : 



" In 1872, 1877, and 1878, whaling was tried in the Strait of Davis by one vessel, but without success. In 1883 

 Mr. Svend Foyn, who is the creator of the Norwegian whale fishery in Finmarken, put np an establishment in Iceland. 

 This year he got twenty-two whales tliere. Whales are also occasionally taken by flsbennea, who shoot them with 

 arrows. In the. waters of Spitsbergen there an; taken every year, by vessels fitted out from Tromso, from 150 to 250 

 so-called white whales (Delphinaplcnix Iciicaa J'albis), by means of nets, 1,100 to 1,200 meters long with meshes of 0.16 



meter. 



