158 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The Boston News-Letter for March 18, 1736, mentions a whale that 

 was "lately killed near Cape Cod," which would make its owners £1,500. 

 This must be either a very remarkable whale, or an equally surprising 

 inaccuracy, for it necessitates a yield of at least 2,500 pounds of bone, 

 worth £800 per ton, and about 290 barrels of oil, worth £14 per ton. 

 Now in 1730 oil was worth £7 per ton, and in 1748 £14 per ten, while 

 about 1700 bone was worth in England £500 per ton. It would seem 

 probable that the whale was very large, and that the price during that 

 year must have run extraordinarily high, for the News-Letter appears to 

 be usually careful iu its statements.* 



Capt. Johu Howland, in a whaliug-sloop from New Bedford, while 

 cruising in the Straits of Belleisle just previously to the Revolution, 

 took two whales which produced 400 barrels of oil, one of them pro- 

 ducing 212 barrels. 



In 1861 the General Pike, of New Bedford, took a whale on theKodi- 

 ah ground which stowed down 274 barrels of oil. In 1855 the ship 

 Adeline, of New Bedford, took a whale in the Ochotsk which produced 

 250 barrels ; the result of that day's work was worth $5,000. 



Naturally such immense creatures are possessed of strength; they 

 likewise are endowed with speed and endurance. When struck they 

 have been known, according to the Rev. Dr. Scoresby,t to descend perpen- 

 dicularly from 4,200 to 4,800 feet, or nearly a mile. Captain Royce, who 

 commanded the Superior in her first voyage into the Arctic, states that 

 he has known a whale to take out 6,300 feet of line in sounding. He 

 does not, however, mean that the whale sounded to that depth, since 

 the line contiuues to be drawn from the boat even while the whale is 

 rising, so that two thirds of this number of feet for the perpendicular 

 descent would probably be making a liberal estimate. The time usually 

 occupied by whales in sounding varies from about half an hour for the 

 right to about an hour and a half for the sperm whale.J A frightened 

 whale will, according to the judgment of old whalemen, go from 10 to 

 12 miles an hour; indeed, when first struck they frequently rush at the 

 rate of from 20 to 25 miles an hour for a short time. Though often 

 killed without extraordinary difficulty, yet their tenacity of life at times 



* In an editorial in tbe Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror of February 17, 1877, the diffi- 

 culty of correctly ascertaining the yield of a single whale is commented on. In a 

 busy season it is no uncommon thing for a ship to " boil out" a thousand or even two 

 thousand barrels of oil without " cooling down," and unless the most extraordinary 

 care was exercised it would be hard to tell where one whale's yield ended and another 

 began.. The Honolulu Friend, in 1849, reported a whale takeu by the Junior, of New 

 Bedford, which produced 316 barrels of oil, and the same paper is the authority for the 

 story of a whale seen by Captain Royce of the Superior, of Sag Harbor, that was so 

 large they would not attempt his capture, because the strain on the mast iu cutting 

 in (if he was taken) would be so great. How well authenticated this story is, is not 

 known, but unless the authority was above suspicion, the strain on one's imagination 

 must be as disastrous as that ou the mast would have been. 



t Notes on Whales and Whaling, xviii. 



X Nimrod of the Sea, Appendix A. 



