INTRODUCTION. 
My views were originally directed to the un- 
dertaking which forms the subject of the pre- 
sent Volume, by a suggestion of the late Right 
Honourable George Rose, when President of 
the Board of Trade. On witnessing some 
experiments made by me to illustrate my 
method of saving persons from shipwreck, he 
was pleased to declare his conviction that the 
principle there employed, in the projection of 
a rope from a gun, might be extended with 
much advantage to the whale-fishery, for the 
purpose of throwing a harpoon in a similar 
manner. He expressed his own confidence 
that the general introduction of such a change, 
would, in a great degree, avert the failure, 
which he regretted to learn, had latterly at- 
tended the investment of capital in this branch 
of commercial speculation ; and he at the same 
