In order to facilitate their work, the fishermen erected masts on the land with crow’s nests at their tops, in which in suitable weather, observers were stationed, and when a spout was seen the boats were launched. This method was pursued for thirty or forty years, when small sloops were employed, making shorter or longer cruises during the summer months, and bringing in the blubber to be tried out on the island. Gradually larger vessels were employed, furnished with try pots, which made cruises to Davis straits as early as 1746, to Baffin’s Bay in 1751, to the African coast in 1763, to the Brazil ground in 1774, and round Cape Horn to the Pacific in 1791. I have heard it said that Gamaliel Collins of Plymouth was one of the crew of the first American whaler to round the Horn. It is a little singular that until 1821 no persistent effort was made in Plymouth to engage in the whale fishery. Whales were always at certain seasons abundant in the bay, but as far as I can learn only occasional attempts were made to take them. It is recorded that while the Mayflower was at anchor in Cape Harbor, “large whales of the best kind for oil and bone came daily alongside, and played about the ship.” On the second of February, 1673, the town ordered that whatsoever whale, or part of a whale, or other great fish that will make oil, shall by the Providence of God be cast up, or come on shore, within the bounds of this township, that every such whale or part of a whale, or other such fish as will make oil; two parts of three thereof are to belong and appertain to the town, viz: the proprietors aforesaid, and the other third part to such of the town as shall find and cut them up and try the oil. The following entry is made in the town records: “The marks of a whale left on record by Benjamin Drew of Plymouth, Dec. 17, 1737; the said whale was struck by Joseph Sachemus Indian at Manomet Ponds, the 25th of November, 1737, there were several irons put into her, one was a backward iron on her left side, and two irons on her right side pretty backward, and one lance on her right side, the iron on the left side was broke about six inches from the socket. She carried away one short warp with a drug to it, and a long warp with a drug without a buoy, one of the drug staves was made with a white birch, one of the irons was marked with an I on the head as the Indians think, with a blind S on the other side of the head, the rest of the irons we cannot give an account of the marks.”