128 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
to disengage itself from the weapon, they spoke 
ill the strongest terms possible. The master of 
the Experiment had already received from the 
Society of Arts, &c., the premium for having in 
one season, with a harpoon gun, shot the greatest 
number of whales. From his great experience 
therefore in that method of taking whales, I felt no 
slight degree of satisfaction at the favourable opinion 
which he gave me of my gun harpoon, of its fully 
answering the purposes proposed, and of the very 
great advantage to be derived from its use, now 
that whales were so difficult to be obtained. It 
also afforded me great pleasure, to hear both masters 
express their unqualified confidence that my design 
to lessen the perils to which whale fishers are often 
exposed would fully succeed ; and that all danger 
would be removed by the use of the shells and 
carcasses to destroy the power of the fish. They 
appeared to be fully impressed with the advantage 
to be expected from these inventions, from having 
witnessed, in the pursuit of their avocation, the 
melancholy fate of some of their companions, who 
had been suddenly cut off by these powerful 
monsters of the deep. The death of the boat- 
steerer, whose corpse was proceeding home in the 
Vigilant, they particularly described, as the event 
took place near them ; the man was in the act of 
lancing a whale, when by one powerful swing of 
its tail, it swept him overboard, and instantly with 
another tremendous blow deprived him of life, by 
breaking every rib, and almost every bone in his 
