When the fishery could be effected entirely in the bay, or even along the sea-coast, any vessels which were sea-worthy, however old or tender, were deemed sufficient to proceed to Spitzbergen, and were generally found adequate to the purpose, especially as they did not set out till the spring was far advanced, thereby avoiding obstructions from the ice and from sudden and destructive storms. When, however, the fishing had to be pursued in the open sea, new, or at least very substantial ships, became requisite, and even these it was found necessary to strengthen on the bows and stern, and on the sides, by additional planks. A greater quantity of fishing-stores also became needful. When fishing among the ice, the whales, after having been struck, frequently penetrated to a great distance out of the reach of their assailants, dragging the line away, until at length they found it necessary to cut it to prevent further loss. Hence, by the frequency of disasters among their ships, the increased expense of their equipment, and the liability of losing their fishing-materials, such an additional expense was occasioned as required the practice of the most rigid economy to counterbalance it. The destruction of the shipping by the ice, in the Dutch fleet alone, was frequently near twenty sail in one year, and on some occasions above that number. The Greenland men of the present day being mostly ice-fishers, an account of the improved mode of fishing now practised will be sufficient for the illustration of the method followed by the Dutch and other nations at a more early period, particularly as the way in which the whale is pursued and killed is pretty nearly the same at this time as it was a hundred years ago. Davis’s Strait, or the sea lying between the west side of Old Greenland and the east side of North America, and its most northern islands, has generally, since the close of the seventeenth century, been the scene of an advantageous whale-fishery. This fishery was first attempted by the Dutch, in 1719; after which period it was usually resorted to by about three-tenths of their whalers, while seven-tenths proceeded to Spitzbergen. This fishery differs only from that of Spitzbergen or Greenland, in the sea being, in many districts, less incommoded with ice, and in the climate being somewhat more mild. The alterations which have taken place in it are, in some measure, similar to those which have occurred at Spitzbergen. The fish which, half a century ago, appear to have resorted to all parts of the western coast of Old Greenland, in a few years retired to the northward, but they still remained about the coast. Of late, however, they have deserted some of the bays which they formerly frequented, and have been principally caught in icy situations in a high latitude, or in the opening of Hudson’s Strait, or at the borders of the western ice, near the coast of Labrador.