was retarded by one or more turns round the “bollard,” a post fixed for this purpose in the boat; when this was done the friction was so great as to produce quantities of smoke, fire being prevented by sluicing the bollard with water. Even with the assistance offered by the bollard, the whale-line might be run out within ten minutes, when the lines of a second or even a third boat would be attached. In this manner some 600 or 700 fathoms of line would be taken out; the whale commonly remaining under water when first wounded for about 40 minutes, although a period of an hour is said to be not infrequent. On rising after its second descent the whale was attacked with lances thrust deep into the body and aimed at the vital parts. The old-fashioned lance was a 6-ft. rod and ½-in. iron, flattened at one end into the form of a lance-head with cutting edges, and at the other expanding into a socket for the reception of a short wooden handle. Torrents of blood spouted from the blow-hole of the whale denoted the approaching end of the struggle. So soon as the whale was dead, no time was lost in piercing the tail or “flukes,” and thus making the carcase fast to the boats by means of a cable, and then towing it in the direction of the ship. From fifteen minutes to as much as fifty hours might be occupied in a whale-hunt.
The following account of the operation of “flensing,” or securing the blubber and whalebone of the Greenland whale, is taken from Sir William Jardine's Naturalists' Library:-
“The huge carcase is somewhat extended by strong tackles placed at the snout and tail. A band of blubber, two or three feet in width, encircling the whale's body at what is the neck in other animals, is called the kent, because by means of it the whale is turned over or kented. To this band is fixed the lower extremity of a combination of powerful blocks, called the kent-purchase, by means of which the whole circumference of the animal is, section by section, brought to the surface. The harpooners, having spikes on their feet to prevent their falling from the carcase, then begin with a kind of spade, and with huge knives, to make long parallel cuts from end to end, which are divided by cross-cuts into pieces of about half a ton. These are conveyed on deck, and, after being reduced to smaller portions, are stowed in the hold. Finally, being by other operations still further divided, the blubber is put into casks, which is called ‘making-off,’ and packed down completely by a suitable instrument.
“While this flensing is proceeding, and when it reaches the lips, which contain much oil, the baleen (whalebone) is exposed. This is detached by means of bone hand-spikes, bone knives and bone spades. The whole whalebone is hoisted on deck in one mass, when it is split by bone wedges into junks, containing five or ten blades each, and stowed away. When the whole whalebone and blubber are thus secured, the two jaw-bones, from the quantity of oil which they contain, are usually hoisted on deck, and then only the kreng remains—the huge carcase of flesh and bone, which is abandoned either to sink or to be devoured by the birds, sharks and bears, which duly attend on such occasions for their share of the prey.”
The largest cargo ever secured by a Scotch whaler was that of the “Revolution” of Peterhead in 1814, which comprised the products of no less than forty-four whales. The oil, which amounted to 299 tons, realized £9568, while the price obtained for the whalebone, added to the government bounty then given to Greenland whalers, brought up the total sum to £11,000. Allowing a ton to each whale, the whalebone alone at present prices would have yielded about £110,000!
At a later period, say about 1880, the Greenland whaler had grown to a vessel of from 400 to 500 tons gross register, rigged either as a ship or a bark, and provided with auxiliary engines of about 75 horse-power. She would be manned by from fifty to sixty hands, and would carry eight boats of the type mentioned above. Below the hold-beams were fitted about fifty iron tanks capable of containing from 200 to 250 tons of oil. Such a vessel would cost about £17,500 to build, and her working expenses, exclusive of interest and insurance, would be about £500 a month. At the period mentioned each whale-boat was armed with a harpoon-gun measuring 4 ft. 6 in. in length and weighing 75 ℔; the barrel being 3 ft. long, with 1½-in. bore, and mounted in a wooden stock, tapering behind into a pistol handle. The gun-harpoon is used solely for first getting on to the whales; hand-harpoons being employed for getting a hold with other lines.
Without referring to further improvements in the weapons and vessels employed, it will suffice to state that in the Greenland whale-fishery the whales are still killed from whale-boats. In the rorqual-fishery, as at Newfoundland, on the other hand, the actual attack is made from a steam-vessel of considerable size, as is described in the following quotation from a paper by Mr G. M. Allen in the American Naturalist for 1904, referring to the fishery at Rose-au-Rue, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland:—
“The fishery itself,” observes the author, “is carried on by means of small and staunchly built iron steamers of something over one hundred tons. A cannon-like gun is mounted on a pivot at the bow, and discharges a 5-ft. harpoon of over 100 ℔ weight, which at short range is nearly buried in the body of the whale. A hollow iron cap filled with blasting powder is screwed to the tip of the harpoon, forming its point. A timed fuse discharges the bomb inside the body of the whale. The harpoon carries a stout cable which is handled by a powerful 5-sheet winch on the steamer's deck.”
Explosive harpoons of the type referred to were invented by Svend Foyn, a Norwegian, and used by him about the year 1865 or 1866 in the manner described above, as they still are in various Norwegian rorqual-fisheries.
In fisheries of this type the carcases of the whales are towed into harbour for flensing; and in place of the “kreng” being wasted, the flesh is worked up to form an excellent manure, while the bones are ground up and also used as fertilisers.
A somewhat similar mode of proceeding characterizes the sperm-whale fishery now carried on in the Azores, so far at least as the towing of the carcases to shore for the purpose of flensing is concerned. According to an account given by Professor E. L. Bouvier in the Bulletin de l'Institut Oceanographique for 1907, American whalers have observation stations on most of the islands of the Azores group; Horta, in Fayal, being the favourite station. The carcases of the cachalots are towed for flensing into a small creek adjacent to the port, where, after the removal of the spermaceti and blubber, they are left to rot. Even the teeth have a commercial value, being either sold as curiosities in Horta, or utilized for ivory. Whenever practicable, the whales caught by the vessels belonging to the great sperm-whaling station at New Bedford are towed into the harbour for flensing.
Passing on to a review of some of the more important whale-fisheries of the world, the Atlantic fishery by the Basques in the 10th and six succeeding centuries claims first mention. Readers desirous of obtaining further insight into the little that is known about it are referred to an interesting paper by Sir Clements Markham published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1881. Although, as already mentioned, the black whale (Balaena biscayensis) was well-nigh exterminated in the north Atlantic by the Basques, and for many years afterwards was excessively rare, yet quite recently several examples have been taken by Scottish whalers off the Hebrides, while the whalebone of others has been received at New Bedford.
The discovery in 1596 by the Dutch navigator Barents of Spitzbergen, followed by the voyage of Hudson in the “Hopewell” in 1607, may be said to have inaugurated the second phase in the whaling industry; these adventurous voyages bringing to light for the first time the existence of the Greenland whale (B. mysticetus), a species of much greater value than any that had been previously hunted.
Here it may be well to refer to two common misconceptions regarding this whale. In the first place, it does not appear to be, as commonly supposed, a circumpolar species. There is, for instance, no evidence of its occurrence eastward of Spitzbergen along the Siberian coast between 10° and 170° E., and it is not till the latter parallel is reached, at Cape Schelagskoi, that the domain of the so-called bowhead of the American whales is entered.
“On the other side of Bering Strait,” writes Mr T. Southwell in the Annals of Scottish Natural History for April 1904, “these whales do not appear to penetrate much farther east than Cape Bathurst, and it seems highly improbable that there is any intercommunication between those at that point and the whales in Baffin Bay. On the other hand, the whales on the east side of
