The ships intended for the Greenland and Davis' Straits fishery should be from 300 to 400 tons burden. They should be strengthened with an additional series of planks, and fortified by the application of timber and iron plates to the exterior, and a great number of timbers and stauncheons to the interior. To preserve the stem from the ice, it is provided with a false or ice-stem, and on the sides of this are placed the ice-knees, or angular blocks of wood, filling up the concavity formed by the stem and fore planks. The stem is also defended by ice-plates of half inch iron.

Each ship has generally six or seven boats, carver-built, they vary from 23 to 28 feet in length, and are capable of carrying six or seven men, and seven or eight hundred weight of whale lines, and various other materials.

The crew of the whale ships generally consist of forty or fifty men, including several classes of officers or harpooners, boat-steerers, carpenters, coopers, &c. together with foremast-men, landsmen, and apprentices. Every individual, from the master to the boys, has, besides his monthly pay, a gratuity for every size fish caught during the voyage, or a certain sum for every ton of oil produced from the cargo.

The weapons generally used in capturing the whale are the harpoon and the lance. The harpoon is made of iron, and is three feet long. It consists of three conjoined parts, the socket, the shank, and the mouth, the mouth includes the barbs, within each of which there is another small barb like the beard of a fish hook, in a reverse position. The lance is a spear of iron, six feet long. It consists of a hollow socket six inches long, swelling from half an inch, the diameter of the shank, to nearly two inches, into which a four-feet fir handle is fitted,—a shank five feet long, and a mouth of steel, very thin and sharp, seven or eight inches long, and two or two and a-half broad. A harpoon gun

is sometimes used for throwing the harpoon to a greater distance than it can be done by the hand. In its most improved form it is made of a swivel, with a barrel of wrought iron about twenty-five inches long, three inches diameter, and one and a-half inch internal bore. It is fired by two locks which act together.

Every boat is furnished with two harpoons, six or eight lances, and from five to seven oars.

When a whale is seen on the surface of the water, unconscious of being observed, the harpooner runs directly upon it, and buries his harpoon in its back; but, when the boat is at a little distance, and the whale is preparing to dive, the harpoon is thrown from the hand, or discharged from a gun, and will be effective, in the former case, at the distance of eight to ten yards, and in the latter at the distance of thirty yards or more. The wounded animal makes a convulsive effort to escape. The boat is subjected to the most violent blows from its head or its fins, but chiefly from its ponderous tail, which sometimes sweeps the air with such fury that both boat and men are exposed to imminent destruction. Harpooners have been struck dead with a single blow of a whale's tail. One of the crew of the John of Greenland had his foot separated from his leg, by slipping it through a coil of line in the act of running out; and a harpooner of the Henrietta of Whitby, having made a whale dart downward by a powerful stroke of his lance, the line caught him round the body, and he was almost cut asunder, dragged overboard, and never afterwards seen.

When the harpooner of the ship Resolution, commanded by Captain Scoresby, had struck a whale, it gave the boat such a violent blow with its tail, that the boatsteerer was thrown to some distance, and a fresh blow projected the harpooner and line-manager in a similar manner.

"A remarkable instance, says Mr. Scoresby, of

the power which the whale possesses in its tail, was exhibited within my own observation, in the year 1807. On the 29th of May, a whale was harpooned by an officer belonging to the Resolution. It descended a considerable depth, and, on its reappearance, evinced an uncommon degree of irritation. It made such a display with its fins and tail, that few of the crew were hardy enough to approach it. The captain (my father) observing their timidity, called a boat, and himself struck a second harpoon. Another boat immediately followed, and unfortunately advanced too far. The tail was again reared into the air, in a terrific attitude, the impending blow was evident, the harpooner, who was directly underneath, leaped overboard, and the next moment the threatened stroke was impressed on the centre of the boat, which buried it in the water. Happily no one was injured. The harpooner who leaped overboard escaped certain death by the act,-the tail having struck the very spot on which he stood. The effects of the blow were astonishing. The keel was broken,--the gunwales, and every plank, excepting two, were cut through--and it was evident that the boat would have been completely divided, had not the tail struck directly upon a coil of lines. The boat was rendered useless.

Instances of disasters of this kind, occasioned by blows from the whale, could be adduced in great numbers, cases of boats being destroyed by a single stroke of the tail are not unknown,-instances of boats having been stove or upset, and their crews wholly or in part drowned, are not unfrequent, and several cases of whales having made a regular attack upon every boat which came near them, dashed some in pieces, and killed or drowned some of the people in them, have occurred within a few years, even under my own observation.

The Dutch ship Gort-Moolen, commanded by Cornelius Gerard Ouwekaas, with a cargo of seven fish, was anchored in Greenland in the year 1660. The captain, perceiving a whale a-head of his ship, beckoned his attendants, and threw himself into a boat.

He was the first to approach the whale; and was fortunate enough to harpoon it before the arrival of the second boat, which was on the advance. Jacques Vienkes, who had the direction of it, joined his captain immediately afterwards, and prepared to make a second attack on the fish, when it should remount again to the surface. At the moment of its ascension, the boat of Vienkes happening unfortunately to be perpendicular above it, was so suddenly and forcibly lifted up by a stroke of the head of the whale, that it was dashed to pieces before the harpooner could discharge his weapon. Vienkes flew along with the pieces of the boat, and fell upon the back of the animal. This intrepid seaman, who still retained his weapon in his grasp, harpooned the whale on which he stood, and, by means of the harpoon and the line, which he never abandoned, he steadied himself firmly

upon the fish, notwithstanding his hazardous situation, and regardless of a considerable wound that he received in his leg in his fall, along with the fragments of the boat. All the efforts of the other boats to approach the whale, and deliver the harpooner, were futile. The captain, not seeing any other method of saving his unfortunate companion, who was in some way entangled with the line, called to him to cut it with his knife, and betake himself to swimming. Vienkes, embarrassed and disconcerted as he was, tried in vain to follow this counsel. His knife was in the pocket of his drawers; and, being unable to support himself with one hand, he could not get it out. The whale, meanwhile, continued advancing along the surface of the water with great rapidity, but fortunately never attempted to dive. While his comrades despaired of his life, the harpoon by which he held, at length disengaged itself from the body of the whale. Vienkes being then liberated, did not fail to take advantage of this circumstance; he cast himself into the sea, and, by swimming, endeavoured to regain the boats which continued the pursuit of the whale. suit of the whale. When his shipmates perceived him struggling with the waves, they redoubled their exertions. They reached him just as his strength was exhausted, and had the happiness of rescuing this adventurous harpooner from his perilous situation.*

In one of my earliest voyages to the whale fishery I observed a circumstance which excited my highest astonishment. One of our harpooners had struck a whale, it dived, and all the assisting boats had collected round the fast-boat, before it arose to the surface. The first boat which approached it advanced incautiously upon it. It rose with unexpected violence beneath the boat, and projected it and all its crew to the height of some yards in the air. It fell on its side, upset, and cast all the men into the water. One man received a severe blow in his fall, and appeared to be dangerously injured; but soon after his arrival on board of the ship, he recovered from the effects of the accident. The rest of the boat's crew escaped without any hurt.

Captain Lyons of the Raith of Leith, while prosecuting the whale fishery on the Labrador coast, in the season of 1802, discovered a large whale at a short distance from the ship. Four boats were despatched in pursuit, and two of them succeeded in approaching it so closely together, that two harpoons were struck at the same moment. The fish descended a few fathoms in the direction of another of the boats, which was on the advance, rose accidentally beneath it, struck it with its head, and threw the boat, men and apparatus about fifteen feet into the air. It was inverted by the stroke, and fell into the water with its keel upwards. All the people were picked up alive by the fourth boat, which was just at hand, excepting one man, who having got entangled in the boat, fell beneath it, and was unfortunately drowned. The fish was soon afterwards killed."

The general practice of a whale that has been struck, is to escape from the boat by making under water, pursuing its course directly downward, and reappearing at a little distance. When the wounded whale disappears, a flag is elevated, and the watch in the ship gives the alarm by stamping on the deck, and calling out " a fall. At this sound the sleeping crew are roused, rush upon deck with their clothes in their hands, and crowd into the boats. The auxiliary boats take their stations about the place where the whale is expected to appear from the movements of the harpooner or "fast" boat.

The whale generally stays under water about thirty minutes, and sometimes fifty-six, but in shallow water it is said to have continued an hour and a half at the bottom after being struck. Immediately on its re-appearance, the harpooners of the auxiliary boats plunge their harpoons into its back. It frequently descends again after the second harpoon has struck it, and when it returns to the surface, lances are pierced through its body, and directed to its vitals. At last, exhausted with wounds and the loss of blood, which flows in copious streams, it discharges from its blow holes a mixture of blood along with the air and mucus which it usually breathes out, and at last jets of pure blood. The sea to a great distance around is dyed with its blood, and the ice, the boats, and the

men

are drenched with its gore. Its course is marked by a broad pellicle of the oil which has exuded from its wounds. The capture is sometimes preceded by a convulsive and energetic struggle, in which its tail, reared, whisked, and violently jerked in the air, resounds to the distance of miles. When dying, it turns on its back or side, and its death is announced with three loud huzzas.

Small whales sometimes exhaust themselves so completely in their descent downwards, that they are suffocated under water and are said to be drowned. In this case it is drawn up by the line. The captured whale is then towed to the ship by all the boats in a line, which is done in the case of a large whale, and with six boats, at the rate of nearly a mile per hour. It is then taken to the larboard side of the ship, arranged and secured for the flensing. This is done by partly extending its body, and raising it by means of a pulley about a fourth or a fifth part out of the water. When the fish is thus lying with its belly upwards, the operation of flensing is performed. The harpooners, with their feet armed with spurs, to prevent them from slipping, descend upon the fish, and as directed by the specksioneer, they divide the fat into oblong pieces or slips by means of blubber spades. A speck or tackle is then fixed to each ship, and it is progressively flayed off as it is drawn upwards. The blubber, in pieces of from half a ton to a ton each, is received upon deck by the boat-steerers and line-managers. The former with strand knives divide it into portable cubical pieces containing nearly a solid foot of fat, while the latter, furnished with pick haaks, thrust it down a hole in the main hatches. It is then received by two men

styled kings, who push it into a place called the flens-gut. The fat being removed from the belly, and also the right fin, the fish is turned on its side. The upper surface of fat is again removed together with the left fin, and a similar set of operations are carried on till the whole of the blubber, whale-bone and jaw-bone have been taken on board.

When the tackle is removed, the carcass or kreng as it is called, commonly sinks, but sometimes it is so swollen by the air produced by putrefaction, that it swims and rises three or four feet above the water. It thus becomes food for bears, sharks and various kinds of birds. The operation of flensing is accomplished in three or four hours when the fish affords 20 to 30 tons of blubber.

When the flens-gut is filled with blubber, or when the crew have leisure, the process of making off is carried on. This process consists in removing all the muscular part of the blubber, with such spongy or fibrous fat as is known to produce little oil. The blubber then cleared is stored in casks, and securely bunged up.

When the blubber is brought home, the oil is extracted from it by boiling in large copper boilers. The boiling is continued from one to three hours. In a ton or 252 gallons of blubber, there is from 50 to 65 gallons of refuse, the greater part of which is a watery fluid.

The following table shows the price of whale oil from 1800 to 1818, which, at an average, was about £34 158. per ton.

Whalebone is found in the mouth of the whale. It forms an apparatus like a filter for collecting the minute animals on which the whale feeds, the sea water running through. When taken from the whale, it consists of laminæ or plates connected by what is called the gum, and ranged along each side of the mouth. The laminæ are about 300 in number. The average length of the blade is 12 or 13 feet, though it is sometimes found 15 feet long. Its greatest breadth is 10 or 12 inches, and its greatest thickness about half an inch. The general appearance of the laminæ taken altogether, resembles the form and position of the roof of a house. At first the price of whalebone was £700 per ton, but it now fluctuates between £50 and £150.

For the information contained in the preceding article, we are indebted to Mr. Scoresby's admirable Account of the Arctic Regions, the second volume of which is devoted to a history and description of the northern whale fisheries. See also Noel's Memoire sur l'Antiquité de la Peche de la Baleine par les Nations Europennes, Paris 1795, 12mo. brief account of the South Sea Whale Fishery will be found in our article ENGLAND, Vol. VIII, p. 605. See also POLAR REGIONS, Vol. XVI, p. 26.

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