ANTARCTIC WHALING.

Bay of Plenty Times, Issue XX, 10 June 1892, Page 2

ANTARCTIC WHALING.

With a view to furthering the efforts now being made to establish the whaling industry in the Southern Pacific ocean, Capt Gray, of whaling fame, has published and circulated a pamphlet on the subject ; much of his information was gained from the account of the voyage of H.M. ships Erebus and Terror under the late Sir J. C. Boss extending from 1839 to 1843. Several of the officers of that expedition have given information, and, as a 1 result, Captain Gray says :— ' We think it is established beyond doubt that whales of a species similar to the right, or Greenland, whale found in high northern latitudes exist in great numbers in the Antarctic sens, and that the establishment of a whale fishery within that area would be attended with successful aad profitable results. These seaa abound, besides, with all the other specie i of whale found in the Northern Polar area — namely, the firmer, hunchback, bottle- nose, and grampus. These, as is well known, are, in comparison with the right whale, of small value, and the only difference which appears to us to exist between what in termed the right whale of the southern and the Greenland whale of the northern latitudes is that the head of the latter is higher in the orown than that of the former, causing the whalebone of the southern as compared with that of the northern species to be shorter and consequently of somewhat less value. The produce of the southern variety, chiefly obtained by the capture of whales which had strayed from their natural haunts as far as the bays of New Zealand, has also commanded in the market place a price somewhat inferior to that of Greenland produce, a fact which we attribute mainly to defects in the mode of its manufacture. ' Captain Gray proceeds to give his reasons for believing that whales can be found in numbers near the margin of the South Polar ice. He considers the inclemency of the weather has been exaggerated, and gives comparative tables. He recognises the difficulty which will be caused iv the work of killing and cutting in by the constant swell, but considers it not without advantage, as it will break up the pack ice and enable it to be easily penetrated if necessary. Reasons are given for the failure of Mr Enderb'y whaling enterprise with the Auckland Islands as headquarters. In the appendices numerous extracts are given to show that those who visited high latitudes in the south found whales to be very numerous.