Book Description

Excerpt from A History of the American Whale Fishery Whaling was once a great industry in the United States. Whole communities were dependent on its success. When voyages were successful there was prosperity and plenty. When voyages failed there was hardship and hunger. Fortunes were made and lost. The foundation of many a stately old mansion in New England rests on oil and bone. But whaling was not a passing boom, not a thing apart from all other interests, not local in nature and local in effect. Its in uence as a social and economic factor was widespread. Whaling was a unit in a great whole - a part of the vast industrial interests of a growing country. It is so no longer. Whal ing is practically dead. The almost complete cycle of whaling activity is a good lesson in economics - the lesson of a ourishing enterprise quickly wiped out by changing economic conditions. The history of whaling forms an important chapter in the commercial history of the United States. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."