150 A HISTORY OF THE WHALE FISHERIES 



' Then they goe to hir and cut off Collops of hir 

 back as deepe as the fatt reaches and as far as the 

 water permitts, which done they turn up one side 

 and then the Belly and lastly the other side and so 

 spades hir round and then leaving the rest of the 

 body (except the whalebone which they take out of 

 hir mouth) to the mercy of the sea. 



' Then they take these Collops and Boyle 

 them in their Coppers and so the fat runs all into 

 oyle. 



" And an ordinary whale will yield twelve tun of 

 oyle, some twenty tun (if large and taken at a 

 seasonable time)." 



Mr Gray was one of the crew of the Salutation, 

 Captain Mason, which was at the Spitsbergen fishery 

 in 1630. He wrote an account of the whale fishery, 

 which is in the Register Book of the Royal Society 

 (1662-3), entitled, " The Manner of the Whale- 

 fishing in Greenland, given by Mr Gray to Mr 

 Oldenburg for the Society." 



" We have according to the bignesse or smalnesse 

 of our ships, the more or fewer Boates ; a ship of two 

 hundred tuns, may man six boats; A vessel of 

 eighty or one hundred tuns, four boats ; A vessel of 

 sixty tuns, three boats or more, not lesse ; three boats 

 being as few as may be with convenience to kill a 

 whale. Each boat hath six men; A Harpeneir, 

 Steersman, and four Oars; to which men the 

 merchant giveth (besides their wages) for every 

 thirteen tuns of Oyle (which we call a whale) when 

 there is so much for each boate, to the Harpenier 



