SCOPE AND VALUE OF ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS 
35 
tioiis and store of indomitable energy, to make the northwest 
and northeast passages, to outline the northern coast of America, 
and to discover the archipelagoes and islands situated poleward 
from the three continents of the northern hemisphere. 
Hudson’s voyage to the Greenland sea, in 1607, was of vast 
industrial and commercial importance, for his discovery and 
reports of the incredible number of walruses and whales that 
frequented these seas gave rise to the Spitzbergen whale fishery. 
The voyage of Poole for walruses and exploration, in 1610, 
was followed by the establishment of the whale fishery by Edge 
in the following year. Enterprising Holland sent its ships in 
1613, later bringing in its train whalers from Bremen, France, 
and other maritime centers. The whale fishery, as the most 
important of Arctic^industries, from which Holland alone drew 
from the Spitzbergen seas in one hundred and ten years, 1679- 
lf78, products valued at about $90,000,000, merits at least our 
brief attention. 
Grad writes : “ The Dutch sailors saw in Spitzbergen wateTs 
great whales in immense numbers, whose calch would be a 
source of apparently inexhaustible riches. For two centuries 
fleets of whalers frequented its seas. The rush to the gold-bear- 
ing placers of California and the mines of Australia afforded in 
our day the only examples at all comparable to the host of men 
attracted by the northern fishery.” 
Scoresby says: “ In a short time (whaling) proved the most 
lucrative and the most important branch of national commerce 
which had ever been offered to man.” This emphatic statement 
is devoid of exaggeration in the slightest degree. Scoresby gives, 
year by year, the products of the Dutch whale fishery in the 
Arctic seas from 1668 to 1778, which aggregate in value over 
$100,000,000. When it is known that Scoresl)y himself caught 
in thirty voyages fish to the value of $1,000,000, it will not be 
considered extravagant to place the products of the British 
whale fishery at $250,000,000. Starbuck gives the ])roduct of 
the American whale fisliery from 1804 to 1877 as $332,000,000, 
making the aggregate of three nations, America, England, and 
Holland, more than $680,000,000. How far this amount should 
be increased on account of .seal, walrus, and other strictly Arctic 
sea game need not be considered, but Norwegian and Bussian 
fishers have successfully exploited these sources for the past 
century. 
