The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-12-15
The following is the number of whalers Wis
iting our principal ports during the fall season ::

III OAlONinS 10 thN hiAAON VI ia VIE"
iting our principal ports during the fall season
Al Honolulu.
All kinds of recruits and provisions have been
in abundant supply, and prices generally below
those of former years. There has been a much
larger demand for vegetables than in former sea-
sons, particularly for sweet and Irish potatoes,
which have generally been obtained without
delay. Seamen have also been abundant. One
fact however has been remarked-that foreign
seamen generally dislike to ship again for the
north, and prefer shipping on homeward-bound
vessels. Their places are supplied by natives of
these and other Pacific islands, who are pre-
ferred by many captains. They make good
whalemen, and are generally content with
smaller lays and advances.
Comparing this seasons average with those Of
former years, it will be seen that there is a large
and steady falling off. amounting this season to
nearly 200 barrels, a decrease which is too
heavy and too important not to have a serious
effect on the future prosecution of the whaling
business in the North Pacific. An important
question naturally arises here-1s this merely
4 temporary decrease, or is it likely to be per-
manent? Those who have the best opportuni-
sN7 w JHN6H5 WiNN shhh ehaS ~ VIM
be permanent, that the whales are annually
decreasing in number and size, particularly on
the Kodiack and Ochotsk grounds. If such be
the case, there can be no reasonable hope held
out that the large averages of 1851. 2 and g
will occur very soon again, nor indeed that
anything better than the averages of the past
two years can be depended on in future.
This decrease of oil and scarcity of whales is
not, however, confined to the North Pacific.
All the old resorts of whalemen-the New
Zealand, the OFF Shore, the Line, and other
cruising grounds, are annually becoming less
productive. Not half the sperm oil is taken
now, per ship, that was taken twenty years
ago.
During the fall season, we have ggeen full
reports from each ship arriving. The weather
at the north has been reported generally as
milder than in former seasons, with fewer acct
dents and losses. Ice and fogs are always met
with in Arctic whaling, and more or less dam
age is sustained therefrom. The only vessel
lost is the VIM. Tel, in the Arctic. The bark
Faith was safely navigated into Petropoloyski,
there condemned, and her oil shipped to this
port.
On the Kodiack the whales were remarka-
bly, scarce this season. Some fifty ships visited
that ground in the spring, but not more than
three or four thousand barrels Of oil were
taken there. From thence the ships cruised
northward in June and July through Bristol
Bay, where q Few whales were seen and cap
tured. Several vessels cruising off Cape Thad-
deus in June fell in with whales bound north,
and captured n number. 1t was here that the
Eliza Adams, Mary q Susan, Magnolia, Hber-
MIA, and several others obtained their good fares.
These whales, it is thought, were bound north
into the Arctic from the Ochotsk bays, where
they are said to breed, and leave their calves
when a few months old.
The whalcmen inform us that the whales
captured in the Ochotsk this season were gen.
orally small, many of them being mere calves,
affording but a few barrels of oil. If this is
the case, and the young whales are being thus
destroyed, the Ochotsk Sea will very soon be
rendered yalueless as a cruising ground. Some
captains with whom we have conversed have
advanced the theory that the numerous whales
that abound in and beyond the impenetrable
ice barriers Of the Arctic, annually come south
to the bays along the Asiatic and American
shores, where they breed. and stay by their
young till four or Eve months old, Of till the ice
begins to break up, vkpq they nirlt>1o fhs
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