208 HISTORY AND METHODS OP THE FISHERIES. 



Sea fishery, which employed 6,412 tons of shipping and were manned by five hundred and fifty- 

 one men. Notwithstanding all the bounties given to the whale fishery, France has very few ves- 

 sels engaged in it. There were only seventeen ships in the trade in 1849, and seven only re-entered 

 French ports. There were but five vessels left Havre in 1853, of a tonnage of 2,045 tons, and with 

 a crew of one hundred and twenty-seven men. The return of the products was 112,485 kilograms 

 of the whale, 1,589 of the cachalot, and 81,712 kilograms of the whalebone. 



"It was estimated by the minister of commerce, in his report on this subject to the Chamber 

 of Deputies more than twenty years ago, that the five hundred and fifty seamen employed in the 

 whale fishery do not cost the state less than 1,000,000 francs, at the rate of 72 12s. per man, or 

 a month. The wages granted by the budget to seamen employed in ships of war amounted 

 to 1 per month, so that the allowance to the seamen employed in the Greenland fishery is six 

 times the ordinary allowance of seamen in the public service. It is remarkable that France was 

 granting these extravagant allowances for the encouragement, of the whale fishery exactly at the 

 time that Great Britain was withdrawing the bounties by which she had formerly endeavored to 

 promote this branch of trade as a nursery for seamen. Yet in 1830 the number of vessels that 

 cleared out for the fishery in England was one hundred and twenty-three, consisting of 40,166 tons, 

 navigated by five thousand and forty-four seamen, being thus about eight times the quantity of 

 tonnage employed by France. The Government of Louis Philippe, alarmed at the large outlay in 

 bounty, endeavored to lessen it and to render it transitory and temporary only. M. d'Argout, 

 the minister of commerce, insisted that those bounties exhausted the resources of the state, and 

 decreasing bounties were after a period adopted, but M. Cuuiu Gridaine, who was minister of com- 

 merce, relapsed into the old error by introducing supplemental bounties. The provisional govern- 

 ment of 1818 by one decree argumented the bounties, and by a second extended the term of the 

 law to December 31, 1851. On the 22d of July, 1851, the National Assembly voted for the con- 

 tinuance of the bounties to 1861."* 



AUSTRALIA, TASMANIA, AND NEW ZEALAND. 



Shore whaling has been practiced to a limited extent on the south and west coast of Australia, 

 under the direction of Americans who had left their vessels while cruising in that vicinity. One 

 of these whaling stations was at Vasse, in Geographe Bay, on the southwest coast of the island, 

 and another was at Buuby, some 30 miles farther north. "At certain seasons of the year the 

 right and humpback whales resort to various bays on this coast for the purpose of producing their 

 young. A lookout is stationed on an eminence ashore, and several boats' crews being near at 

 hand, at the appearance of a whale the alarm is given and they start in pursuit. At times their 

 work is very easy, but if the whale should run out to sea, after being struck, they are obliged to 

 tow him to the shears, and frequently a day and night are consumed in this arduous employment. 

 If the whale is attended by a calf they always fasten to the latter first, knowing that the mother, 

 in her solicitude for her offspring, is very careful not to use her tremendous flukes, or, if a hump- 

 back, her sweeping fins; but woe betide the boat, unless an experienced boat-header directs it, 

 that is in the vicinity when she discovers that her calf is dead. She then remains close to the 

 lifeless body, striking right and left with flukes and fins to avenge her loss, and, as the slightest 

 tap from these formidable weapons would cause destruction, it requires all the boat header's 

 adroitness to avoid them. The officers, boat-steerers, and, if they can by any means be procured, 

 two-thirds of the crews are Americans. We have a world wide reputation for skill in tins pursuit." t 



*Ency. Britannica, vol. x, p. 266. Franco has had no fleet since 1866. 



t W. B. WHITECAU, jr., : Four years aboard the Whale Ship : Phil., I860, p. 91. 



