PART III -THE AMERICAN WHALE-FISHERY. 



CHAPTER I. 

 ORIGIN AND ANCIENT MODE OF WHALE-FISHING. 



Before entering upon the history of the American Whale-fishery, we will intro- 

 duce a few remarks relative to the origin and prosecution of whaling in other 

 quarters of the world. If we go back to the time of the early Grecian sailors, and 

 follow through the maritime history of every nation, there appears to be no posi- 

 tive record as to the time when, or place where, whale -fishing originated. In the 

 collection of various whaling and exploring voyages which we have perused, nearly 

 all the authors agree that the Basques and Biscayans were the first to capture 

 whales as a regular commercial pursuit. Eminent writers, however, maintain that 

 the Norwegians were the first to pursue those leviathans of the deep, and that they 

 carried on a fishery long before any other European nation. It may be possible 

 that the Norwegians were the first who made the whale-fishery a legitimate busi- 

 ness. This, however, seems to be very doubtful, when we look to the shores of 

 Japan and Chinese Tartary, where, ever since we have been in possession of any 

 reliable knowledge of that region and its inhabitants, we know that the Japanese 

 and Tartars have successfully pursued the whale in large boats from their shores. 

 Among the American authorities relative to the foreign whale-fishery is the Hon. 

 J. Pvoss Browne, who, having had recourse to the Congressional Library at the time 

 of compiling his Mcliings of a Whaling Cruise, and History of the Whale-fishery, 

 has given, in the appendix to that work, a concise and somewhat chronologi- 

 cal account of whaling commerce, beginning as early as 887, and follomng down 

 to the present century, from which we shall quote numerous statistics of that 

 eminent writer, as also extracts from the works of other authors. 



"As early as 887, according to Anderson (in his Historical and Chronological 



Marine Mammals. — 24. CIS.5] 



