Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/563

Rh shallowness of many parts of the Arctic Ocean e.g., of the Barents and Kara Seas and the sea to the north of Siberia localities where the species is quite unknown. The fishing is prosecuted off Green land and in Davis Strait by the British, and at Behring Strait by the Americans. Sailing either directly from the home ports in April or proceeding thither after prosecuting the sealing, the British whale ships arrive at the north Greenland whaling-grounds off the west coast of Spitz- bergen early in May. If it is a &quot;close&quot; season, i.e., if the ice of the Barents Sea comes west round the south end of Spitzbergen, and effects a junction with the Greenland ice, so as to form a south east pack, the ships have sometimes to force their way through several hundred miles of ice before reaching the grounds. On the other hand, if it is an &quot; open &quot; season, as more usually occurs, the barrier ice in lat. 80 may be reached without hindrance. In cruising for whales certain indications are sought which the whale men know by experience to be favourable to the appearance of the animal. The first of these is &quot;whaling ice,&quot; or moderately loose ico with close pack or floes in the neighbourhood. The second is abundance of food. The presence of this condition may be as certained by a surface net, or it may be inferred from the colour of the water, which varies from the barrenness of clear cold cerulean to the richness of opaque and warm olive green. The crustacean Calanus finmarchicus, the pteropod Clione limacina, and the gas- teropod Limacina helicina are amongst the most abundant forms, the first-mentioned contributing perhaps nine-tenths of the whale s food. Yet very little is known positively as to the food of the Greenland right whale. According to whalemen (and the idea has hitherto been generally accepted by naturalists), the animal lives upon various invertebrate forms, such as Actiniae, Schias, Cliones, Medusae, Cancri, and Helices. Scoresby states that some of these genera are always to be seen wherever whales are found stationary and feeding. Dr John Murray, however, is of opinion that whales also resort for food to the larger forms of pelagic fauna which exist in the immediate vicinity of the bottom of the ocean, and the presence of which was ascertained during the course of the &quot;Chal lenger&quot; investigations. The third condition is abundance of the higher forms of life, such as birds, especially guillemots (Uria grylla) and looms (Alca arm), also narwhals (Monodon monoccros), seals, bears, c. The whales make their appearance amongst the ice near the sea edge about 15th May, but only remain in the locality until the opening of the barrier ice permits them to resume their northward journey, for usually about the middle of June they suddenly disappear from these grounds, and are last seen going north-west. The north Greenland whale-fishing is then over for the season. If unsuccessful in obtaining a cargo at the northern grounds, the whale ships next proceed southwards as far as lafc. 75; then, if the sea is sufficiently open, they penetrate westwards until the coast of Greenland is visible. There they cruise amongst the ice until August, when the darkness of the nights puts an end to the fishing. Davis If the south-west fishing is first prosecuted, the vessels arrive Strait at the ice edge near Resolution Island in April. Here, although fishing, numbers of large whales are usually seen, yet, owing to the boister ous weather and the compact nature of the ice, the fishing is seldom very successful, so that the majority of the vessels, after pro secuting the &quot;saddle&quot; sealing at Newfoundland or Greenland, pro ceed direct to Disco, where they usually arrive early in May. The whales make their appearance at South -East Bay about 15th May, and here, where once a great fishing was carried on, a few whales may be killed. The dangerous passage of Melville Bay is next performed and the whale ships, entering the north water in June, push on towards the sounds. If there is a &quot; land-floe across,&quot; i.e., if the land-ice of the west side is continuous across the entrance of Ponds Bay and Lancaster Sound, whales will be seen in consi derable numbers and good cargoes may be obtained ; but imme diately the land-floe breaks up the whales depart to the westward. When there is no land -floe across, the whales proceed at once into the secluded waters of Eclipse Sound and Prince Regent Inlet, where they resort during the summer months. At this season of the year most of the vessels cruise in the sounds, while a few search the middle ice, until the darkness of the August nights compels them to seek an anchorage in some of the harbours of the west side, where they await the return of the whales south. This migration takes place on the formation of young ice in the sounds, usually in the latter part of September. Only the larger in dividuals, however, and the great majority of these males, come close down along the land of the west side. These the ships send their boats out to intercept, and this forms the inshore fishing or &quot; rock-nosing &quot;, which is continued until the formation of young ice drives the vessels out of their harbours, usually early in October. Hud- A few vessels, American as well as British, occasionally enter son s Bay Hudson s Bay and prosecute the fishing in the neighbourhood of fishing. Southampton Island, and even enter Fox Channel. There are whaling-stations in Cumberland Inlet, and a few vessels usually remain all winter, ready to take advantage of the opening of the ice in the following spring. Here the young as well as the old 527 whales make their appearance in May ; the former have migrated south during the previous autumn amongst the archipelago of islands forming the west side into Fox Channel, thence by Hudson s Strait to the pack-ice off Resolution Island, where, together with the old whales, they probably winter. Early in May the whale men drag their boats over the ice to the open water at the floe edge, and the whales are seen amongst the pack-ice in the offing, the younger whales being nearest the land-floe. Encampments are formed along the floe edge, and the fishing is continued until the whales migrate north in June. The average full-grown Greenland right whale yields about 15 Produce tons of oil and 15 cwts. of whalebone, although individuals are of Green- occasionally killed which yield nearly 30 tons of oil and 30 cwts. of land whalebone. The whalebone consists of about 590 slips, the longest whale- measuring 10 feet 6 inches and weighing 5 tb in an average animal, fishing. 12 feet 6 inches and 9 K in a very large one. The following table shows the returns of these fisheries from 1860 to 1886 in clusive, in so far as British vessels were concerned. It will be seen that a constant decrease has taken place both in the number of whales killed and in the total value of the produce. The price to which oil has fallen little more than pays the expense and trouble attending its being taken on board and its subsequent pre paration for the market, and there can be little doubt that, but for the high price which whalebone commands, the fishing would Ion&quot; ere this have been abandoned as unremunerative. Whales Killed. Produce. Value Year. Sj- -^ I &quot;3 Ct-l . . Of Oil Of Whale Of Total 03 1-1 .2 43 O ! f| per cwt. bone 1 per cwt. Produce. O P ^ s. (1. s. d.

1SCO 8 70 84 1291 1530 1 12 6 20 10 70,828 1861 3 190 193 1947 2178 1 19 18 112,305 1862 1 97 98 9-10 1051 270 26 69,185 1863 15 25 40 618 079 2 10 27 48,627 1864 3 65 C8 702 903 240 20 10 54,818 1865 8 58 00 742 860 290 20 57,039 1866 35 46 81 868 933 290 24 15 63,563 1867 7 17 24 228 240 230 20 12,360 1868 4 130 134 1228 1357 1 16 22 71,529 1869 4 17 21 266 207 220 23 15 15,960 1870 1 85 SO 902 1111 1 18 18 5 54,871 1871 4 148 152 1348 1544 1 14 6 18 10 72,647 1872 25 113 138 1392 I486 1 19 24 10 87,601 1873 2 170 172 1429 1475 1 19 6 24 10 89,508 1874 1 208 209 1602 16SO 1 18 20 103,130 1875 2 90 98 925 970 1 16 31 60,770 1876 13 70 83 987 1118 1 10 42 10 79,009 1877 2 95 97 867 935 1 13 60 79,892 1878 19 10 29 360 400 1 11 70 36,780 1879 6 72 78 755 829 179 50 58,892 1880 5 127 132 1000 1074 170 37 10 63,858 1881 23 58 81 709 696 1 11 35 44,268 1882 79 79 660 582 1 11 50 47,011 1883 i 17 18 200 216 1 12 110 28,150 1884 11 79 90 912 932 150 72 10 84,132 1885 12 29 41 430 435 119 00 33,233 1886 15 19 34 320 370 110 82 10 34,652 History. As already stated (see above, p. 524) a right whale fishery History of great importance was prosecuted in the temperate waters of the of Green- Atlantic at a very early period, more especially by the hardy seamen land of the Basque provinces from the 10th to the 16th century. Author- whale ities are now agreed that the whale pursued was Balsena biscay- fishing. cnsis, which diil ers from B. mysticetus in its smaller size, its greater activity, and its more southern distribution. The Greenland right whale fishery owes its origin to Henry Hudson s first voyage to Greenland and Spitzbergen in 1607. His glowing accounts of the great numbers of whales and morses led to the despatch of Jonas Poole to the Greenland Sea by the Muscovy Company, and the success of his four voyages (1609-1612) speedily attracted the vessels of other nations. For a time the English endeavoured to obtain a monopoly of the fishing ; but, the other nations resisting, hostilities were engaged in, which resulted in the discomfiture of the English by a Dutch fleet in 1618. Thereafter it was agreed that different parts of the Spitzbergen coast should be allotted to different nationalities. The English interest in the industry, how ever, declined, and the fishing fell mainly into the hands of the Dutch, who until 1640 also carried on an important fishing in the seas surrounding the island of Jan Mayen. Meanwhile they did not neglect the Spitzbergen fishery, in which 10,019 whales were taken by them in the ten years 1679-1688. About 1680, when their fishing was probably at its most prosperous stage, they had 260 vessels and 14,000 seamen employed. Their fishery continued to flourish on almost as extensive a scale until 1770, when it began 1 The figures given are the values of &quot;size-bone,&quot; i.e., slips of whalebone exceeding feet in length, which is twice the value of whalebone under that length, so that before the exact value of the produce could be arrived at it lias been found necessary to compute 17 per cent, of the whalebone at half the figure given, being the proportion of whalebone under size in an average whale.