THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERIES 245 



The Finners were not much chased in these waters 

 on account of the difficulty of taking them with the 

 hand harpoon. 



The American whaling industry at the end of the 

 nineteenth century was in a bad way. 



A small fleet still hunted the Sperm and Right 

 Whales in the North and South Atlantic. In 1892 

 this consisted of thirty-two ships ; in 1898 of fourteen 

 only. Of these four were from eighty to one hundred 

 tons, six of one hundred to two hundred tons, four 

 from two hundred to two hundred and fifty-five tons. 

 The crew consisted of fifteen on two vessels, sixteen 

 on five, twenty-five on six, and thirty on one vessel. 

 A sad decline from the hey-day of the American 

 Atlantic whale fishery. The vessels still fitted out 

 for a three years' cruise, and garnered their harvest on 

 the old whaling grounds. The decrease in the yield 

 of sperm oil from this fishery was from seventy-three 

 thousand seven hundred and eight barrels in 1860 to 

 twelve thousand five hundred and twenty in 1 898. 



This industry was very rapidly dying out. The 

 West Indian fishery and that of the Southern Indian 

 Ocean was no longer followed by the Americans. 

 In fact, the only fishery remaining to the Americans 

 of any magnitude was that from San Francisco, 

 which still sent out ships to the North Pacific and 

 Arctic-American Oceans. 



The American fishery in Davis Strait and Hudson 

 Bay consisted of one vessel in 1890, one in 1892, five 

 in 1895, one m 1896-97, and two in the summer of 

 1897, both making losing voyages. 



