CHAPTER IV 



THE DUTCH WHALERS PREDOMINANT (1623-1750) 



The methods of the Dutch whalers at Spitsbergen Smeerenburg 

 The French at Spitsbergen The English Muscovy 

 Company Anderson and Gray's description of the fishery 

 The German whalers The pre-eminence of the Dutch. 



ACCORDING to Jansen, 1 the Dutch whalers (1613- 

 1750) did not keen regular written logs. It was not 

 the custom of fisherme" ' . do so, and it was only 

 towards the middle of the nineteenth cc -tun th, t 

 vessels engaged in the Dutch 1 ernng fisl -ry ker 

 logs. The whalers went out and home every yeai, 

 keeping only a slate and no log. The accounts that 

 have been published were written from memory, and 

 were in some cases greatly amplified 6y those who 

 received them. Fogs prevented accurate observa- 

 tions, and when the fog cleared away boisterous 

 weather drove down the ice from the region of the 

 Pole and compelled the whalers to run before it. 

 Many whalers were lost, and the States General were 

 compelled to make a law to regulate the manner in 



1 Notes on the Ice between Greenland and Nova Zembla; 

 being the results of investigations into the records of early Dutch 

 voyages in the Spitsbergen seas. Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., 

 Vol. ix., London, 1864-5. 



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