264 A HISTORY OF THE WHALE FISHERIES 



valuable on account of its whalebone, was nearly 

 extinct, and whalers sought principally the Sperm 

 Whale, the other species not being much utilised. 



Fin and Blue Whales and the common Rorquals 

 were of little or no value for whalebone, and their 

 oil was of small account. Their great activity 

 rendered their capture by the old methods of har- 

 pooning extremely hazardous. Whaling appeared 

 to be dying out completely, when a harpoon gun, 

 invented by Svend Foyn, a Norwegian sailor, 

 came into use. This gun was invented by Foyn in 

 1860, but does not appear to have come into common 

 use until twenty years later. This invention was 

 considerably improved in the course of time, but the 

 earlier guns were muzzle-loaders of steel with steel 

 coils and mounted on swivels. Its length was about 

 four feet, and it was fired at a distance of twenty-five 

 to fifty yards, the gunner trying to hit the whale 

 between the ribs as near the spinal column as 

 possible. 



The gun-harpoon consisted of the shell with 

 charge, the barb-holster and pole. The shell was 

 screwed to the barb-holster, which contained a glass 

 filled with sulphuric acid. To the pole a rope was 

 attached, of four hundred fathoms' length and 

 weighing about three thousand pounds. 



The whole apparatus when it left the gun was 

 solid; when the harpoon penetrated the whale the 

 barbs turned so as to crush the glass tube, the sul- 

 phuric acid escaping, and causing the shell to 

 explode. 



