The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-01-12
SCOTTISH WHALING FLEET.
DUNDEE STILL SENDS VESSELS
 TO ARCTIC WATERS

Last Calling in Great Britain-WhaIers
 as ExDlOrers-Their Work of Rescue in the Far North--Catch This Year
 Has Been One of the Poorest on Re-
 cord.
 Bruised and vanquished by violent
 storms and the terrible polar ice bar
 rier of the Arctic seas, the gallant lit-
 tie fleet of SScottish whalers has re-
 turned home with one of the poorest
 catches" on record
 After months of struggling to make
 their way through the ice foes in Mel
 Vile Bay, toward the chief fishing
 ground, running continual risks of be-
 ing crushed in the pack or of being
 wrecked in collision with the great
 bergs that sometimes bore down upon
 them in the darkness and the fog, the
 Whalers had to confess themselves
 beaten and make for home For the
 first time in his twenty-four years ex-
 perience, says the London Tribune,
 that veteran whaling master, Captain
 Milne of the Eclipse, has had to report
 clean ship not having caught sim
 gle whale; and in this he is not alone.
 The total catch of the ten vessels en- gagged in the fishing is seven whales, yielding short of four tons of bone or balcon; last year the catch was twen- ty-three whales, yielding seventeen tons of bone. Half of this years catch was secured by one whaler, the Scotia, on the east coast of reenland, the oth- CT vessels making for the usually more profitable fishing grounds in Davis Strait. On the amount of balcon- more precious than ivory-secured, de bends the success of the voyage and the fortunes of every man on board the ships, for a rigid system of profit shar- ing prevails. It is this, perhaps, which makes the whaling crew in the midst of trying circumstances the most har- monious crew afloat.
 Whale fishing is practically lost calling. In 1915 British vessels to the number of one hundred and sixty four engaged in it, a bounty being paid at that time on every ton of oil brought by British vessel into British port. To-day eight to ten vessels now sail to the Arctic seas in quest of whales, and practically the whole of these are dis patches from one northern port, that of Dundee, The marmalade town is just ly proud of the fact that 1t alone of all the seaports in Great Britain is sufff- ciently enterprising to equip and dis patch a fleet of vessels on such a haz- ardous and speculative quest.
 Despite this years unfortunate expe- rience, the pursuit is not an unprofita- ble one Whalebone at present ranges in value from e2,250 to G2,500 ton, and with average luck the returns per ship are large. With the produce of TWO large whales one ship recently paid a dividend of twenty per cent, and few years ago the Diana's prof l its for one season with five whales l to seven thousand three [ hundred and fifteen pounds sterling, enabling a dividend of one hundred and twenty-five per cent. to be paid to tho shareholders.
 A fine set of men are the whaling clear headed, iron nerved and resourceful, as they had need be, for | their calling; sons, most of them, of l whose fathers, like them, had l sailed the Arctic seas; men who have | given their names to many an island and many q bay which they were the first among Europeans to explore. To them much of our knowledge of the Arctic is due, and the information they possess has been keenly sought by ex- plorers and Investigators who have the art of writing books and achieving re- nown. To them, too, more than me expeditin has been indebted for timely aid.
 Only, last year the Terra Nova, per- haps the finest whaling ship ever built in Dundee, was dispatched to Franz Josef Land to succor the members of the ill-fated Ziegler expedition, who lost their ship, the America, formerly the whaler Esquimaux, also of Dun dee. The explorers had passed two winters in the vicinity of Cape Flora. The Terra Nova, which succeeded in its task, was commanded by Captain Henry Mackay, one of the most expe- t rienced ice masters in the country His crew was mainly composed of whaling men from Tayside It was the Terra Nova, too, under the same com mand, which conveyed relief to the Discovery in the Antarctic after the relief ship Morning had been unsuc- 2essful in it's mission.
 Another Dundee whaling master, Captain Thomas Robertson, was in command of the Scotia in the Scottish Antarctic expedition, two years ago, which did splendid work in oceano-