388 WHALE TRIBE* 
for more than three centuries, notwisfanding the 
coldness of the climate, and the terrors of the icy 
sea, a great number of European ships have annu- 
ally frequented those deary abodes, and at length 
thinned the number of their inhabitants. 
The whale fishery was carried on, for the sake 
of the oil, long before the use of whale»bone was 
discovered. The substance which has obtained 
that name, adheres to the upper jp,w ; and is form- 
ed of thin parallel laminae, some of the longest 
four yards in length. Of these there are about 
seven hundred in all : about two thirds of that 
number are of a length fit for use, the rest being 
too short. The oil is extracted from different parts 
of the body ; the tongue alone of some fish yielding 
from five to six barrels. 
As early as the beginning of the fourteenth 
pentury, the Biscayneers were in possession of a 
very considerable trade to the coast of Greenland : 
they long enjoyed the profits of a lucrative traffic 
in train oil and whale-bone, before the English 
attempted to obtain any share of that commerce. 
What probably first gave them an idea of the 
advantages to be reaped from it, was the accident 
of one of their ships bringing a cargo of whale- 
bone and train oil from the bay of St. Laurence, 
part of the burden of two large Biscayan ships 
that had been wrecked there about the year 1594. 
A few years after that period, the town of Hull 
had the honour of first attempting that profitable 
branch of trade. At present it seems to be on the 
decline, the number of fish being greatly reduced 
by their constant capture for such a vast length of 
time. It is now said that the fishers, from a defect 
of whales, apply themselves to seal fishery, from 
which animals they also extract an oil, and turn 
the skins to good account. This trade, however, 
Will not probably be of any long continuance,, for 
