240 A HISTORY OF THE WHALE FISHERIES 



at San Francisco or some other Pacific port, either 

 re-fitting or engaging in short cruises in neighbour- 

 ing waters, e.g., in the " lagoon whaling " in the 

 arms of Magdalena Bay. In 1848 no less than 

 fifty boats were engaged in lagoon whaling, the 

 yessels being anchored and the whales captured by 

 boats, thus recalling the early days of the Spits- 

 bergen fishery. In spring the vessels went north, 

 and waited for the ice to break up in Behring Strait. 

 In the autumn the cargoes were transhipped to the 

 east from San Francisco, Panama, Honolulu, and 

 other ports. 



With the steam whaler it was customary to remain 

 in the Arctic during the winter so as to be the first 

 in the field when the ice broke up in the spring. 



By 1893 one-fourth of the vessels whaling in the 

 North Pacific and Arctic wintered off the mouth of 

 the Mackenzie River. 



With the opening of the transcontinental railways, 

 the importance of San Francisco as a whaling port 

 increased, and, although New Bedford still 

 possessed the larger fleet, a great many of its 

 vessels carried on the trade with San Francisco as 

 headquarters. 



Originally all the refining of the Pacific oil was 

 done at New Bedford, but in 1883 refineries were 

 built at San Francisco together with works for the 

 manufacture of sperm candles. Since 1880, then, 

 there has been a gradual supersession of the eastern 

 by the western ports. The San Francisco fleet 

 grew- while all the other fleets declined, so that in 



