16 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



(c. 70° 30'), and Home Bay (between the 68th and 69th degrees), were their chief stations, and 

 they continued to fish there through the whole month of September and even late in October -^ 

 that is to say, at a time when in Disco Bay opposite and along the corresponding coast of 

 Greenland not a single whale is to be seen. But in all these cases, also, the whales have kept 

 close to the ice, which is still, at the season indicated, to be found in great quantities along the 

 west coast, while it has perfectly disappeared from Disco Bay. Finally, outside of Baffin's Bay 

 itself, in Fury and Hecla Strait, between the peninsula of Melville and Cockburn's Land (69J°), 

 Parry, on his second voyage, found the whale in the beginning of August, and ordered one to be 

 caught on the 5th of that month ;^ but these waters, too, are at this time still filled with ice. 

 Thus, while we admit that no certain conclusion can be made from the appearance of the 

 whale along one side of Baffin's Bay, as to its appearance along the opposite coast, it will, at any 

 rate, everywhere be found to be inseparable from the ice. 



We have stated above that the whale, along the Labrador side of Davis Strait, comes down 

 at least as far as the outlet of Hudson's Strait, to the 62nd and 61st degrees of latitude (Resolution 

 Island) ; but is this the utmost limit of its range in these regions, or has it not, at least formerly, 

 found its way considerably further southwards, even as far as the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 and the sea round Newfoundland ? Such an idea has generally prevailed, and as the current 

 takes immense masses of floating ice downwards along the whole coast of Labrador, and as the 

 ice encloses the northern coast of Newfoundland as late as the beginning of May, it could not 

 be said to be contrary to the nature of the whale if, on its winter migrations, it followed the coast 

 of Labrador down to the latitude of Canada, and had a winter station near Newfoundland. In 

 favour of this supposition, it has commonly and without reservation been alleged that a whale- 

 fishery has been carried on in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and near the coast of Newfoundland, long 

 before Spitzbergen and Jan Mayen were discovered. The question, however, is not to be settled 

 so easily, probable as it is that the whale really has roamed so far southward; for, on a 

 closer examination of the particulars of the whale-fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it will be 

 found that we can scarcely suppose that all the whales caught there were Greenland whales. 



It must be remembered that, although it is true that Newfoundland, as early as the sixteenth 

 century, was annually visited by hundreds of French, Basque, and English vessels, repairing 

 thither partly to fish cod on the banks, but partly also for the purpose of killing seals and walruses 

 or catching whales,^ yet the whole trade on the " Terres neuves,'' or " la Tierra de los Bacallaos," 

 was carried on in summer. The vessels arrived at the beginning of the mild season, and stayed 



^ Leslie, Jameson, and Murray, 'Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in the Polar Seas and 

 Regions,' &c., third edit., Edinburgh, 1833, p. 413, seq. 



^ Parry, W. E., ' Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage,' 

 London, 1824, 4to, pp. 301. 



^ Anthony Parkhurst, who, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, made several voyages to 

 Newfoundland, has given in a letter to the celebrated Mr. R. Hakluyt, dated Bristol, the 13th of 

 November, 1578, a statement of the average number of vessels which then annually repaired to this island 

 and the neighbouring banks. According to his statement, there were about 50 English vessels, nearly 

 as many Portuguese, 150 French, and 100 Spanish, besides 20 or 30 whaling-ships from Biscay. Comp. 

 Hakluyt, 'Voyages, Navigations, TrafBques, and Discoveries of the English Nation,' London, 1600, 

 vol. iii, p. 132. 



