liable to be carried immediately beyond the reach of assistance, and soon out of sight of both boats and ship. Hence the striker is under the necessity of cutting the line, and sacrificing his employer’s property for securing the safety of himself and his companions. In the year 1818, I ordered a general chase of them, providing against the danger of having my crew separated from the ship by appointing a rendezvous on the shore not far distant, and preparing against the loss of much line by dividing it at two hundred fathoms from the harpoon, and affixing a buoy to the end of it. Thus arranged, one of these whales was shot, and another struck. The former dived with such impetuosity that the line was broken by the resistance of the buoy, as soon as it was thrown into the water, and the latter was liberated within a minute by the division of the line, occasioned, it was supposed, by its friction against the dorsal fin. Both of them escaped. Another physalis was struck by one of my inexperienced harpooners, who mistook it for a mysticetus. It dived obliquely with such velocity that four hundred and eighty fathoms of line were withdrawn from the boat in about a minute of time. This whale was also lost by the breaking of the line. The physalis occurs in great numbers in the Arctic Seas, especially along the edge of the ice, between Cherie Island and Nova Zembla, and also near Jan Mayen. Persons trading to Archangel have often mistaken it for the common whale. It is seldom seen among much ice, and seems to be avoided by the mysticetus; hence the fishers view it with painful concern. It inhabits most generally in the Spitzbergen quarter the parallels of 70° to 76°; but in the months of June, July, and August, when the sea is usually open, it advances along the land to the northward as high as 80° of latitude. In open seasons it is seen near the headland at an earlier period. A whale, probably of this kind, one hundred and one feet in length, was stranded on the banks of the Humber, about the middle of September, 1750. Another species of whale frequenting the coasts of Scotland, Ireland, Norway, etc., is the _Balænoptera rorqual_ of La Cepède, _Balæna musculus_ of Linnæus, or the broad-nosed whale.