14 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
caught in the squeeze, and sunk shortly afterwards. The Star was 
likewise lost in Cumberland Gulf, making, with the Eesolute before- 
mentioned, four Dundee vessels which fell victims to the “thick-ribbed 
ice” last season. Kor was this all, for the Catherine, of Peterhead, a 
sailing brig of 190 tons, after various adventures on reefs and rocks, 
was finally beached and abandoned on September 30 in Cumberland 
Gulf. Fortunately, the crews in all cases were rescued. 
In Davis Strait plenty of whales are reported to have been seen both 
in the early and late fishing ; but the weather was so bad, combined 
with heavy seas and ice-floes of a very dangerous character, that fish- 
ing was impossible ; and during the summer months, when the best 
fishing is usually met with, the young whales which, as a rule, are then 
found in Lancaster Sound, although the ships were through Melville 
Bay in good time to meet them in passing, were altogether absent, 
having, it is conjectured, taken some other passage. 
The Davis Strait and Cumberland Gulf vessels, ten in number, killed 
19 whales. These are said to have yielded 380 tons of oil and 290 cwt. 
of bone, giving an average of 20 tons of oil and 15 cwt. of bone each, 
a very high average for the Strait whales, which is probably to some 
extent accounted for by the summer fishing of the young whales being 
a failure, those taken being in consequence all adults. Of this I shall 
have something more to say presently.* 
The seal fishery offering no temptation for an early start, and conse- 
quent greater outlay on the voyage, Captain Gray, of the Eclipse, de- 
ferred his departure from Peterhead until April 20, with the intention 
of devoting his energies to whaling and shooting old seals; of the latter 
he obtained 700 and of the former 7. In the Greenland seas the Eclipse 
and Erik, from Peterhead, and the Pole Star, from Dundee, captured 15 
whales, yielding 88 tons of oil, and 80 cwt. of bone — the whales aver- 
aging just over 5| tons of oil and 5£ cwt. of bone. The Hope and 
Aurora, as also the Earl of Mar and Kellie, which paid a short visit to 
the Greenland whaling, were unsuccessful! Fourteen of the above 
whales were taken early in the season, and in about the same locality, 
the remarkable feature about them being their small size. 
The relative size of the whales taken in Davis Strait and Cumber- 
land Gulf, compared with those jisually taken in Greenland, has in the 
past season been quite reversed. A large number of Davis Strait and 
Cumberland Gulf whales, taken over a period of years, produced an 
average of 9 £ cwt. of bone each ; whereas the Greenland whales, capt- 
* The disparity between the quantities of hone and oil as stated above is certainly 
too great ; there is always a remarkably constant proportion of one hundredweight 
of bone to each ton of oil, and this holds good with whales of all sizes. The Trav- 
eller brought home from Cumberland Gulf some whale oil which had been left out 
last season; but in addition to this I think there must be some inaccuracy in the re- 
ported quantity of oil ; possibly some of the white-whale oil has been accidentally 
entered as whale pifi 
