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 584 WHARTON ca, the voyages of English and Dutch explorers to the northern seas led to the discovery of the northern haunts of the balana or great " right " whale, and the Dutch entered largely into the whale fishery. Great numbers were found in the vicinity of the island of Spitzbergen, and the Dutch erected a considerable village, which they named Smeerenberg (smeeren, to melt), on the coast of that island as a resort for their ships for boiling the blubber. After some years the whales abandoned the shores of Spitzbergen and were found on the Greenland coasts, and the Dutch ships brought the blub- ber home. In 1680 they had 260 ships and about 14,000 sailors engaged in this fishery; but from that time their traffic in oil began gradually to decline. England attempted to take the place which Holland had occupied in the fishery, but with slight success. In 1815, when the fishery was at its height, there were only 164 ships engaged in it. The New Eng- land colonies embarked in this fishery at an early period. In 1690 and for 50 years later it was prosecuted in boats from the shore, the whale being a frequent visitor of the coasts and bays of Now England. In 1740, the whales having abandoned the coast, the fishermen fol- lowed them in larger vessels and to the arctic and antarctic coasts. In 1753, and for several years subsequently, Massachusetts alone em- ployed 304 vessels, measuring about 28,000 tons, in the northern and southern whale fish- eries. At first the whalers' attention was turned to the capture of the right whale, but in 1712 Christopher Htissey of Nantucket, being driv- en off shore, fell in with and killed a sperm whale, and within a few years the Nantucket fishermen were equally ready to capture one as the other. That island, Martha's Vineyard, and Cape Cod monopolized the business till shortly before the revolution, when New Bed- ford, now the largest whaling port in the world, began sending out whale ships. Nantucket long held the supremacy as a whaling port, but the business there has now entirely ceased. See " Etchings of a Whaling Cruise," by J. Ross Browne (New York, 1846); "The Whale and his Captors," by II. T. Cheever (1850); "Moby Dick, or the White Whale," by Her- man Melville (1855); "The Whale Fishery" (1855) ; and "Whaling and Fishing," by Charles Nordhoff (Cincinnati, 1857). WHARTON, a S. E. county of Texas, bounded N. E. by the San Bernard river, and intersected by the Colorado ; area, 1,094 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 8,426, of whom 2,910 were colored. The surface is generally level, and the soil highly fertile. The Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio railroad crosses the N. part. The chief productions in 1870 were 148,900 bushels of Indian corn, 8,540 of sweet potatoes, and 1,217 bales of cotton. There were 607 horses, 563 milch cows, 4,672 other cattle, and 2,010 swine. Capital, Wharton. WHARTOX, Frauds, an American author, born in Philadelphia in 1820. He graduated at Tale college in 1839, studied law, and settled in his native city. He was professor of English lit- erature, jurisprudence, and history in Kenyon college at Gambier, O., from 1856 to 1868, when he was ordained a clergyman of the Epis- copal church, and became rector of St. Paul's church in Brookline, Mass. In 1866 he became professor of homiletics and pastoral care in the Episcopal theological school, Cambridge, Mass., which office he still retains (1876). He has pub- lished a " Treatise on the Criminal Law of the United States" (Philadelphia, 1846; 6th ed., 8 vols., 1868); "State Trials of the United States during the Administrations of Washing- ton and Adams" (1849); "Precedents of In- dictments and Pleas adapted to the Use both of the Courts of the United States and those of the several States" (1849) ; " A Treatise on the Law of Homicide in the United States" (1855) ; " A Treatise on Theism and Skepti- cism" (1859); with N. Stille, M. D., "A Trea- tise on Medical Jurisprudence" (1855; revised ed., 1860); "The Silence of Scripture, a Se- ries of Lectures" (1867); "Treatise on the Conflict of Laws" (1872); and "The Law of Agency and Agents" (1876). He was for a time associate editor of the "Episcopal Re- corder," Philadelphia. WHARTON, Henry, an English clergyman, born in Worstead, Norfolk, Nov. 9, 1664, died in Newton, Cambridgeshire, March 5, 1695. He graduated at Caius college, Cambridge, in 1684, and in 1686 became assistant to Dr. Wil- liam Cave in the compilation of his Scriptorum Eccletiatticorum Historia Literaria (1688-'9). He was afterward appointed one of the chap- lains of Archbishop Sancroft. His numerous works include Anglia Sacra (2 vols. fol., 1691), a collection of ecclesiastical biographies; "A Defence of Pluralities" (8vo, 1692); and a pamphlet criticising Burnet's history. WHARTON. I. Thomas Wharton, marquis of, an English statesman, born about 1640, died in London, April 12, 1715. He was the eldest son of Philip, fourth Baron Wharton, with whom he was among the first to join William of Orange upon his arrival in England in 1688. He held several important offices under Wil- liam, and subsequently was one of the commis- sioners for arranging the treaty of union with Scotland. He succeeded to his father's title in 1696, and in 1706 was created Viscount Win- chenden and Earl Wharton ; and he was also made a peer of Ireland as earl of Rathfarn- ham and marquis of Catherlough. In 1708 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, which office he held for two years, Addison being his secretary ; and on the accession of George I. he was created marquis of Wharton, and lord privy seal in the Halifax ministry. Ho was throughout life a devoted whig, and unrivalled as a party manager, but notoriously immoral and unprincipled. According to Bishop Percy, he was the author of the famous Irish ballad of "Lillibulero." II. Philip Wharton, duke of, son of the preceding, born in December, 1698,