The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-05-20

THE DECLINE OF WHALING.
Almost Complete Failure of the Eng
lish Catch This Year

lish Catch This Year.
With the return Of the Davis Straits
vessels it is possible to estimate the re-
suits achieved by the Scotch whalers
during last season The catch on this
ground is worth s14.O4o, of which e12,-
600 represents the so-called whale
bone" and the balance oil. On the
Greenland ground the season was an
almost complete failure, one vessel
(The Baena) having caught only one
fish, which gave twelve hundredweight
of bone and sixty tuns of Oil, worth in
all $4,000. In order to fill up, in default
of whales, the ships turned their atten-
ton to Franz Josef Land, where wal
rus are plentiful, and the Balaena cap
tured round six hundred, whose skins
will bring in $4,000. So far as this one
whaler is concerned, last seasons oper-'
atoms do not involve a loss of money,
but we doubt If the Diana's so walrus
and seven bears, the Active's 70 walrus
and 40 seals, and the Polar Stars 351
ficient money to compensate for their
several outfits. To any one acquainted
with the past history of the whaling
industry, these results are saddening.
AS compared with last year, the Davis
Straits return shows an increase; but
both grounds have yielded less than in
1894; when from Davis Straits the ships
brought home 1856 tuns of oil and 12k
tons of bone and from Greenland 1924
tuns of bottle-nosed whale and seal oil,
and ~ tons Of bone, worth in all about
e31, 800.
The introduction of steam forty years
ago marked a new era in whaling, and
enabled better results to be obtained
But, unfortunately, by that time the
number of fish in the sea-"right"
whales in the north and sperm whales
in the south-had begun to thin, and
the use of steam in the capture of the
cetaceans has only served to decimate
| them the more rapidly. In the ten
years prior to 1858 (when steam was
employed for the first time) the aver
| age annual number of whales
taken by Peterhead, Dundee
Aberdeen and other Scotch ships
was 10, which yielded 1900 tuns be-
tween them a124,000. 1t will be seen
what falling-off there has been be-
| tween 1857 and 1897. But go further
| back, and the contrast becomes far
more pronounced. During the four
years 1S14-'17, the number of voyages
made from Scotland was 1914, and the
| total catch was 1852 whales, which
| yielded 1854 tuns of oil and S91 tons
1 80 1;,I, ;,,t fo,,y
| years made 1892 voyages, and the total
| catch of whales was S,348
| The average of the Davis Straits fish
ers was about two thirds of this, and
the gross value of the freights Of the
| two fleets INCLUDING the Government
| bounty of 30s. per toni, with oil at 932
and whalebone at ESQ per ton, exceeded
| 100000 for the one year. Whalebone
to-day is worth G1,S00 per ton, and oil
e20 per tun. The price Of oil has dim
| inished, owing to the progress Of gas
and other illuminants and to the sub
| stitution Of mineral oil in manufactur-
es But the valve of bone has advanced
| for over seventy years past, and, as no
really effective substitute has yet been
| found, the price bids fair to go up still
| higher in proportion as whales become
| more rare.
Sperm whaling Is in even worse case
than right whaling. A few small
| schooners go out from Colonial ports
after that variety, and the American
| feet spend some part of the year in the
Pacific looking for it. But neither can
| boast of much success. We in this
country were long behind the men of
| New Bedford and Nantucket in search
ing for the "spermacetty," and we went
out of it long before them. But it is
| to the enterprise of an Englishman
| that the nations were indebted for the
| sperm whale fishery having been open
| ed out to it's greatest extent. An at
| tempt made to establish this branch
from London in ITS was a failure. Ten
| years later the English shipmasters
| discovered the haunts of the sperm
| whale, and in 1888 as much as 727 tuns
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