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of Cumberland Sound] a great whale passed by us, and swam west in among the isles."1

Twenty years later Henry Hudson was in Greenland waters, seeking like his predecessors that ignis fatuus, the Northwest Passage to Cathay. In the narratives of his voyages there are occasional references to whales. The earliest of these, in the narrative of the first voyage in 1607, is as follows:

[1607. HUDSON'S FIRST VOYAGE.]

"Also wee saw [June 13th] a whale close by the shoare. Wee called the head-land which we saw Youngs Cape; and neere it standeth a very high mount, like a round castle, which wee called the Mount of Gods Mercie."

2

This place appears to have been in Hudson Strait. A few days later we find

another reference:

"This day [June 18, 1607] we saw three whales neere our ship, and having steered away north-east almost one watch, five leagues, the sea was growne every way." 3

This appears to have been on the east coast of Greenland. Finally, in that narrative of Hudson's last voyage, by Prickett, which contains the tragic story of his fate, we find another mention of whales, as follows:

[1610. HUDSON'S FOURTH AND LAST VOYAGE.]

"Our course [soon after the 4th of June, 1610] for the most part was betweene the west and north-west, till we raysed the Desolations, which is a great iland in the west part of Groneland. On this coast we saw store of whales, and at one time three of them came close by us, so as wee could hardly shunne them: then two passing very neere, and the third going under our ship, wee received no harme by them, praysed be God."4

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This locality was in the vicinity of Cape Farewell, the "Desolations" being on either side of that cape. In the perusal of this account one is reminded very forcibly of Scammon's description of the habits of the Common Finback of the North Pacific, Balaenoptera velifera Cope. "It frequently gambols about vessels at sea,' he writes, "in mid-ocean as well as close in with the coast, darting under them or shooting swiftly through the water on either side, at one moment upon the surface, belching forth its quick ringing spout, and the next instant submerged deep beneath the waves."5

Close after Hudson follows Baffin, who was pilot of the ship Discovery for the company for the discovery of the Northwest Passage, and approached the GreenHakluyt Soc., 1849, p. 47. Davis's

Voyages toward the Northwest. Ed. by Thos. Rundall.

Traverse Book. From Hakluyt, 3, pp. 153, 154.

Henry Hudson, the Navigator. Ed. by Geo. Asher. Hakluyt Soc., 1860, p. 3.

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land coast in May, 1612. The record for the 12th day of that month contains the following note:

[1612. BAFFIN'S FIRST RECORDED VOYAGE.]

"This day [May 12, 1612] the water changed of a blackish colour; also, we saw many whales and grampus's.""

This was near (and east of) Cape Farewell, which they sighted May 13th, and again May 14th. In 1616, in the same month, Baffin was once more in Greenland waters, and the narrative of that voyage contains an interesting account of the finding of a dead whale in Davis Strait somewhat north of Disco Island. Baffin records the incident thus:

[1616. BAFFIN'S SECOND VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. (FIFTH RECORDED VOYAGE.)]

"The two and twentieth day [of May, 1616], at a north sunne, wee set saile and plyed still northward, the winde being right against vs as we stood off and on. Vpon the sixe and twentieth day, in the afternoone, we found a dead whale, about sixe and twentie leagues from shoare, hauing all her finnes [whalebone]. Then making our ship fast, wee vsed the best means wee could to get them, and with much toile got a hundred and sixtie that euening. The next morning the sea went uery high, and the winde arising, the whale broke from vs, and we were forced to leaue her and set saile, and hauing not stood past three or foure leagues north-westward, came to the ice, then wee tacked and stood to the shoare-ward, a sore storme ensued."2

This dead whale is mentioned again in a letter which Baffin wrote to Sir John Wolstenholme, one of the principal promoters of the enterprise, in connection with quite extended remarks on the whales of Baffin Bay, so that we are enabled to identify it as a Greenland Right whale. The paragraphs which are pertinent to our subject are as follows:

[1616. BAFFIN'S LETTER TO SIR JOHN WOLSTENHOLME.]

"Now that the worst is knowne (concerning the passage) it is necessarie and requisite your worship should vnderstand what probabilitie and hope of profit might here be made hereafter, if the voyage might bee attempted by fitting men. And first, for the killing of whales; certaine it is, that in this Bay [Baffin Bay] are great numbers of them, which the Biscayners call the Grand Bay whales, of the same kind as are killed at Greeneland, and as it seemeth to me, easie to be strooke, because they are not vsed to be chased or beaten. For we being but one day in Whale Sound (so called for the number of whales we saw there sleeping, and lying aloft on the water, not fearing our ship, or ought else); that if we had beene fitted with men and things necessarie, it had beene no hard matter to haue strooke more then would have made three ships a sauing voyage; and that it is of that sort of whale, theare is no feare; I being twise at Greeneland, tooke sufficient notice to know them againe; besides a dead whale we found at sea, hauing all her

V

Hakluyt Soc., 1881, p. 7. From
Written by John Gatonbe.

The Voyages of William Baffin. Ed. by C. R. Markham. Churchill's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 6, 1732, pp. 241–251. Op. cit., pp. 139–140. From Purchas. Written by Baffin.

finnes (or rather all the rough of her mouth), of which with much labour we got one hundred and sixtie the same evening we found her; and if that foule wether and a storme the next day had not followed, we had no doubt but to haue had all, or the most part of them: but the winde and sea rising, shee broke from vs, and we were forced to leave her. Neither are they onely to be looked for in Whale Sound, but also in Smith's Sound, Wolstenholme's Sound, and others, etca.,” (Pp. 146-147.)

"As concerning what the shore will yeeld, as beach-finnes, morse-teeth, and such like, I can say little, because we came not on shore in any of the places where hope was of findinge them.

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"But here som may object why we sought that coast no better? To this I answere, that while we were thereabout, the wether was so exceeding foule, we could not.. When we had coasted the land so farre to the southward, that hope of passage was none, then the yeere was too farre spent [to seek a harbor], and many of our men very weake, and withall we hauing some beliefe that ships the next yeere would be sent for the killing of whales, which might doe better than we." (Pp. 147-148.)

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"And seeing I have briefly set doune what hope there is of making a profitvoyage, it is not vnfit your worship should know what let or hindrance might be to the same. The chiefest and greatest cause is, that som yeere it may happen by reason of the ice lying betweene 72 and a halfe and 76 degrees, no minutes, that the ships cannot com into those places till toward the middest of July, so that want of time to stay in the countrey may be some let: yet they may well tarry till the last of August, in which space much businesse may be done, and good store of oile made. Neuerthelesse, if store of whales come in (as no feare to the contrarie) what cannot be made in oyle, may be brought home in blubber, and the finnes will arise to good profit. Another hinderance will be, because the bottome of the sounds will not be so soone cleere as would bee wished; by meanes whereof, now and then a whale may be lost. (The same case sometimes chanceth in Greeneland [i. e. Spitzbergen].) Yet, I am perswaded those sounds before named [Whale, Smith, and Wolstenholme] will all be cleere before the twentieth of July: for we, this yeere, were in Whale Sound the fourth day, amongst many whales, and might have strooke them without let of ice."

1

This letter, which is undated, relates to the second voyage, 1616.

The use of the name "Grand Bay whale" in this letter for the Greenland Right whale attracted the attention of Eschricht and Reinhardt, and they enter into an elaborate discussion as to its significance in relation to the primitive distribution of the species in their exhaustive memoir.2

Thomas Edge was in Spitzbergen at the same time as Baffin, and in the narrative of his "ten several voyages" thither he takes pains to insert a description of the various species of whales found in those waters. The description begins thus: [1610-1622. VOYAGES OF THOMAS EDGE TO SPITZBERGEN.]

"There are eight sorts of whales: The first is called the Grand-Bay, from a place in New-found-land, where they were first killed; he is black, with a smooth Voyages towards the Northwest. Ed. by Thos. Rundall. Hakluyt Soc., 1849, pp. 146From Purchas. 'Om Nordhvalen.

149.

Vidensk. Selsk. Skr., 5 Række, naturvid, og math. Afd., Bd. 5, p. 459.

Skin, and white underneath the Chaps: This Whale yields about 100 Hogsheads of Oyl.

"The second is called Sarda, of the same colour, but somewhat less, and yields about 70 or 80 Hogsheads; he hath white things growing on his Back like to Barnacles." 1

Edge thus corroborates Baffin, and there can be no doubt that the name "Grand Bay whale" was in currency for Balana mysticetus at the beginning of the seventeenth century and perhaps earlier.

Grand Bay, as the maps of that period show, was a name applied to that part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence immediately within the Strait of Belle Isle. It is to be found on Allefonsce's sketch, Champlain's maps (1612, 1613, and 1632), Jacobsz's map (1621), and others.

3

Now, although the latest writer on the Greenland whale places the southern limit of its range at about 58° n. lat., on the coast of Labrador, one would not be surprised to learn that in the winter months it followed the ice down to the Strait of Belle Isle, and became the object of a fishery there. But, as Eschricht remarked, the Newfoundland whale fishery of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was carried on exclusively in the summer months and on the theory that the Greenland whale was one of the species pursued, it is necessary to suppose that it remained after the ice had disappeared in these parts, which is entirely contrary to what is known of its habits.

As a solution of the problem, Eschricht suggested that the Basques did not know of the visits of the Greenland whale to the Newfoundland coast until they had begun to establish settlements and winter there. In the instructions given Edge by the Muscovy Company the species is called the "Bearded whale"; while in his account of his voyages to Spitzbergen, 1612 to 1622, it is called "Grand Bay" whale. The natural inference is that soon after 1611 certain Basques had dis. covered that the Greenland whale occurred in Newfoundland waters, and had afterwards shipped with Edge for the Spitzbergen fishery and reported to him the name "Grand Bay" whale. The matter quoted is chiefly interesting in the present connection as the first attempt to identify the whales in American waters with those of Europe, and as an early (though not the earliest) mention of whales at Newfoundland.

1

A little later in this same voyage which we have been discussing, Baffin

Harris's Voyages, 1, p. 574. Purchas, His Pilgrimes, 3, 1625, pp. 462–473.
Champlain has the following regarding the name of "Grand Baye":

"Il y a un lieu dans le golphe Sainct Laurent, qu'on nomme la grande baye, proche du passage du Nort de l'Isle de terre neufue, à cinquante deux degrés, ou les Basques vont faire la pesche des balaines."

(LAVERDIÈRE, Euvres de Champlain, 2d ed., 1870, 6, p. 1088. This is in the second part of Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France Occidentale, dicte Canada. Paris, 1632.)

'See Justin Winsor's Cartier to Frontenac, 1894, pp. 42, 102, 107, 125, and 140, where these maps are reproduced.

√ ง SOUTHWELL, THOS., The Migration of the Right Whale (Balana mysticetus). Nat. Sci., 12, 1898, pl. 12.

proceeded to very high latitudes and on July 3d, 1616, was in Wolstenholme Sound, to which he gave its present name. He writes thus of the whales:

[July 3, 1616]: "This Sound wee called Wolstenholme Sound; it hath many inlets or smaller sounds in it, and is a fit place for the killing of whales." 1

The next day he explored and named Whale Sound, of which he writes:

"In this Sound [July 4, 1616] we saw great numbers of whales, therefore we called it Whale Sound, and doubtlesse, if we had beene provided for killing of them, we might have strooke very many. It lyeth in the latitude 77° 30'."2

HUDSON BAY.

The narratives of Hudson's (1610), Baffin's (1612-1616), Button's (1612), and Munck's (1619) voyages contain nothing regarding whales in Hudson Bay and Strait. A passing reference is to be found in the account of Fox's voyage of 1631, as follows:

[1631. CAPTAIN LUKE FOX IN HUDSON BAY.]

"Fox obeyed his instructions, though he evidently entertained an opinion that this [. e., Roe's Welcome northward] was the fittest part to search for the passage; being moved by the high flowing of the tyde and the whales, for all the tydes that floweth that bay [Hudson Bay], commeth (neere) from thence.' " 3

Captain Coats's Remarks on the Geography of Hudson's Bay, from voyages between 1727 and 1751, contains the following:

"Near Whale Cove and Brook Cobham, it is agreed on all hands, their are such sholes of whales and seales, as is no where else to be met with in the known world." 4

NEWFOUNDLAND AND THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE.

It is sometimes asserted that the Basques, who undoubtedly hunted the Right whale, Balana biscayensis, on the coasts of Europe in the Middle Ages, finally crossed to Newfoundland in pursuit of their quarry at a period antedating Columbus's discovery. Thus, P. Fischer in 1872, in his account of the Basque whale fishery, writes: "When the Basques had destroyed the whales which arrived in

'The Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622. Ed. by C. R. Markham. Hakluyt Soc., 1881, p. 144. From Purchas. Written by Baffin.

'Op. cit., p. 145. Ross also found whales in this vicinity in 1818, but Southwell regards both these instances as exceptional, and thinks it improbable that the Greenland whale (B. mysticetus) commonly passes beyond 75° n. lat. (Nat. Sci., 12, 1898, p. 408.)

'Voyages towards the Northwest.

from N. W. Foxe.

4

Hakluyt Soc., 1852, p. 29.

Ed. by Thomas Rundall. Hakluyt Soc., 1849, p. 177. Abst.

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