212 MARINE MAMMALS OF THE NORTH-WESTEBN COAST. 



numbers of Sperm Whales on the coast of Japan. Upon this information, in 1820, 

 ships were dispatched to what is now known as the Japan Ground. The two first 

 to arrive were the Nantucket ship Maro, Captain Joseph Allen, and the English 

 ship Underhij, which was commanded b}^ Frederick Coffin, of Nantucket. Here they 

 were successful in soon filling their vessels with sperm oil, and two years after 

 there were more than thirty ships upon that coast. About this period nearly the 

 whole coast of western North America, as far as the land known as New Albion, 

 was traversed by the sperm -whalemen, and it is said that more than a hundred 

 ships were literally spanning the North Pacific in their eager search between the 

 two continents for the coveted Cachalots. In 1828, four ships were sent from 

 Nantucket to cruise for Sperm Whales off the coast of Zanzibar, around the Chy- 

 chile Islands, and about the mouth of the Red Sea ; and one of the number, with 

 the very appropriate name of Colmnhis, through the skill and energy of the captain, 

 sailed up the Red Sea in quest of the objects of pursuit. 



But while the explorations and the chase for both the Cachalot and the Right 

 Whale were being vigorousl}' prosecuted in the North and South Atlantic, and 

 through the temperate and torrid zones, not only by American whalemen, but by 

 vessels wearing the flags of the principal maritime nations of Europe, those remote 

 and forbidding latitudes of the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific had received 

 due attention. As far back as 1803, ships were cruising around Kurguelen Land 

 for Right Whales, in the season, and sometimes a portion of their crews were 

 engaged in sealing along the surf -beaten shores of Desolation and the Crozet 

 islands, making up "mixed" but profitable voyages. Subsec|uently the coasts of 

 New Zealand and New Holland (now Australia), became prolific whaling -grounds. 

 Yet, with all the vast extent of both sea and ocean known to the whalemen for 

 prosecuting their vocation, there were adventurous spirits among them who were 

 ever in deep study and eager for a new field of pursuit, and plying their vessels to 

 the far north in the Pacific, an unparalleled success awaited them. In the year 

 1835,* the American ship Ganges took the first Right Whale on the Kodiak Ground. 

 This was the beginning of the great whaling of the North-western Coast; and in 

 1839 the fleet of the United States engaged in whaling numbered five hundred and 

 fifty -seven vessels, which were distributed among the Northern Atlantic ports in 

 the proportions set forth in the subjoined table. In 1842 the number was six 

 hundred and fifty -two. At this time tlie foreign whaling- fleet amounted to two 

 hundred and thirty sail, and the coml)ined fleet of the world, engaged in the enter- 

 prise, numbered eight hundred and eighty -two ships, barks, brigs, and schooners. 



* Vide Nantucket paper. 



