CHAPTER XI. 
RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE SPERM WHALE FISHERY, 
The origin of the sperm whale fishery — that is, before 
it became organized as a branch of commerce— like the 
origin of other fisheries of the same nature, is involved 
in such deep mystery as almost altogether to defy the 
searching acumen of the historian. Without looking 
into the ancient, romancing, and classical histories, 
with which most of the countries of Europe abound, 
and which contain wonderful stories of the appearance, 
death, or capture of the sperm whale, or other creatures 
of the same order, it may be sufficient for some of us 
to know, that during the early part of the last century 
a few daring individuals who inhabited the shores of 
the American continent, fitted out their little crafts, 
furnished with weak and almost impotent weapons, to 
attack and destroy in its own element the mighty 
monarch of the ocean, in order to rob his immense 
carcass of the valuable commodity with which it is 
surrounded. But even as far back as the year 1667, 
we find a letter, published in the second volume of the 
Philosophical Transactions , from Mr. Richard Norwood, 
who resided at the Bermudas, which states that the 
whale fishery had been carried on in the bays of those 
islands for “ two or three years,’* evidently meaning the 
