THE LAST PHASE OF WHALING 273 



together with its outfit, cost five thousand pounds, 

 was well equipped with boats, gun harpoons, and all 

 the apparatus necessary for the capture of the Sperm 

 or Right Whale. On their voyage to Kerguelen 

 they encountered large schools of Finners, for the 

 capture of which their equipment was not suitable. 

 After a between-season's Sperm whaling, the 

 Antarctic set off in winter (Antarctic summer), of 

 1894 to a cruise in the Antarctic opposite Australia. 

 Many Finners were again seen. 



As a result of an expenditure of over five thousand 

 pounds the Norwegians concluded that the Right 

 Whale was not present in summer-time in the 

 Antarctic pack ice in sufficient numbers to make 

 commercial whaling profitable. In fact, they do 

 not appear to have reported the Right Whale at all 

 in Antarctic waters. The whales they saw off Cape 

 Adare (South Victoria Land) in January, 1895, were 

 Finners. 



Only half a century before this Ross (1843), on 

 his return journey to Cape Town from the Ant- 

 arctic, mentions seeing from five hundred to six 

 hundred whalers fishing off Kerguelen for Right 

 Whales. Most of these ships were American, and 

 the bulk of them made good voyages. Such an 

 enormous destruction had taken place that in 1893 

 only a few small vessels prosecuted this fishery with 

 doubtful success. 



The voyage of the Antarctic, however, made it 

 clear that with suitable equipment a profitable fishery 

 for Finners could be carried on in the Antarctic, since 



s 



