4 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



about the life of the whale durhig the greater part of the year in which it is not exposed to the 

 persecutions of the whalers, we must have recourse to those countries near the shores of which it 

 regularly appears, and where it may easily be observed from year to year, at any season. For 

 this purpose no place is, perhaps, better adapted than that part of the w^estern coast of Greenland 

 along which the Danish factories and missionary stations are situated. 



It is true that the whale-fishery, formerly so profitable to the greater part of these factories, 

 has gradually been discontinued in all of them except in Holsteinsborg ; but still the whale 

 appears regularly near the shore, and wdiile it thus may still be observed every year, a treasure of 

 facts relating to its appearance along the very same shore in former days has been collected in 

 the factories. The whale-fishery from the Danish factories was not carried on in vessels in the 

 open sea, but from the so called, " Hvalfangerloger," or " Hvalfangeranlæg," establishments on 

 the coast, provided with the necessary apparatus for trying out the blubber, and, according to 

 the number of the inhabitants, with a greater or smaller number of boats, completely fitted out 

 for whale-fishing. Thus, these establishments might be considered as stationary whaling ships ; 

 and as in the ships a look-out is kept from the crow's nest on the mast, so in the factories a 

 constant close watch for whales was kept upon one of the neighbouring rocks. As soon as a 

 whale was observed, the boats were put to sea, weather and ice permitting, and the w4iale, when 

 killed, was towed on shore, where the flensing took place. The crews of the boats, harpooners 

 included, were mostly Greenlanders, but the administration of the factories was left to Danish 

 functionaries, bound to give an exact account of what took place every day in the factory, and 

 therefore their annual reports, sent down to the Colonial Department at Copenhagen, will be 

 found to contain, not only statements about every single whale killed, or lost after having been 

 harpooned, but most commonly also, of those which were observed from the look-out rocks, 

 even though the weather did not permit the boats to put to sea. The reports also occasionally 

 contained various and not unimportant observations about some of the whales, either captured or 

 only observed. Thus it is clear that, from the Danish establishments in Greenland, generally 

 speaking, very much information may be procured, which it would be difficult to obtain from the 

 other shores, partly desert and partly only inhabited by wild tribes, along which the whale 

 regularly makes its appearance. It will also be easily seen that the situation of Greenland is 

 such as would make it probable that the question whether in the course of time an alteration has 

 taken place in the geographical range of the whale may there be most easily settled. For that 

 part of the western shore of Greenland along which the factories are situated reaches from the 

 60th to the 73rd degree, in a direction almost due north. Thus, it extends to the considerable 

 length of about 200 Danish miles from the limits of the temperate zone up towards the North 

 Pole, and it is, in its whole extent, washed by a sea which has been the principal scene 

 of a whale-fishery which has twice, during the period of more than a century since the 

 establishment of the first Danish factories, taken a considerable rise, and then, again, sunk down 

 into its present insignificance. It might then be expected that the whale, in this particular 

 region, would have retired further northwards if it had been at all natural for it to endeavour to 

 avoid persecution in this manner. 



We shall therefore found our researches in respect to the present and earlier 

 distribution of the whale generally upon its appearance near the coast just mentioned, which 

 appearance is pretty well known to us, partly through the reports of those who have spent more or 

 less time in Greenland, among w'hom we must mention the names of Captain Holboll and Major 



