Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/88

84 on 1854 is probably due to the opening up of the bowhead whaling of the Okhotsk Sea, possibly by Captain Freeman Smith, of the ship Huntsville of the Cold Spring Harbor fleet, and of true arctic whaling by Roy's voyage through Behring strait in the bark Superior (275 tons), of Sag Harbor, L. I., in 1848.

In diagrams 2-4 the products of this fleet are represented for the various years. Here barrels of whale oil and of sperm oil and pounds of

 One unit on the vertical scale denotes 10,000 tons.

bone are marked off on the vertical scale for each year. In general form the curves for all three products resemble that for tonnage. There are, however, certain distinct and conspicuous differences.

First among these, one notes the great variations from year to year in the quantity of products brought in—fluctuations which show the great uncertainty which surrounded the industry. This is most conspicuous for whale oil: it is almost equally marked in the case of whale