This fishery, less losing
than the other, and often profitable, will occasion it to be so
thronged, soon, as to bring it on a level with the other. It will then
require the same expensive support, or to be abandoned.
2. The Greenland whale-oil is next in quality. It resists coagulation
by cold, to thirty-six degrees of Fahrenheit, and two of Reaumur, but it
has a smell insupportable within doors, and is not luminous. It sells,
therefore, in London, at about sixteen pounds the ton. This whale is
clumsy and timid; he dives when struck, and comes up to breathe by the
first cake of ice, where the fishermen need little address or courage
to find and take him. This is the fishery mostly frequented by European
nations; it is this fish which yields the fin in quantity, and the
voyages last about three or four months.
The third quality is that of the small Brazil whale. He was originally
found on the coast of Nantucket, and first led that people to this
pursuit: he retired, first to the Banks of Newfoundland, then to the
Western Islands, and is now found within soundings on the coast of
Brazil, during the months of December, January, February, and March.
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