CHAPTER XI 



COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS 

 The Whaling Industry 



IN Antarctica it would appear that the flag follows 

 the trade. No nation made any definite claim to 

 Antarctica until the development of whaling in south- 

 ern waters showed that, however poor the land might 

 be, here was a very valuable territory. In recent years 

 70 per cent of the whale-fishery of the world has taken 

 place either near Graham Land or in vicinity of the 

 Ross Sea. In this chapter, therefore, these two aspects 

 of Antarctica, the commercial and the political, may 

 well be considered side by side. 



We owe to Gunnar Isachsen a peculiarly timely ac- 

 count of the development of the whaling industry in 

 Antarctic waters. {Geographical Rczncw, July. 1929.) 

 He points out that there have been four main stages 

 in the development of whaling, as we see it to-day. 

 The Vikings perhaps first commenced to hunt the huge 

 mammal (for it is, of course, in no wise akin to the 

 fishes) off the coast of Norway. Possibly they taught 

 the craft to the Basques, for we first hear of whaling 

 in the tenth century in the Bay of Biscay. In the six- 

 teenth century whaling was a brisk industry in the 

 north Atlantic, and soon spread to Spitzbergen and 



220 



