Some years ago, the ship Hunter, Captain Cogan, when off St. Lawrence Island, was caught in a whirlpool and seriously disabled. He patched up his ship as best he could and made a fresh start. Off Icy Cape, bottom ice was struck, causing a serious leak, and the captain was forced to seek refuge in the nearest haven. Here every movable object was taken out of the ship and carried on shore. Then the spars were unshipped and converted into a raft, which was anchored at both ends and steadied with water casks. Using the raft as a wharf, and in the face of a blinding storm, the ship was hove down, the keel raised above the surface of the water, and the leak repaired. Captain Cogan's cruise up to that time had been a fruitless one, but three months later he sailed safely into port with a valuable cargo. Similar experiences befall the whalers every year. During the long and toilsome passage through Behring Sea, a sharp lookout is kept for whales, but few are now caught south of Cape Navarin, and whaling does not commence in earnest until the ships are well out into the Arctic. Each ship has five whaleboats, and when the lookout in the crow's nest reports a whale in sight, the crews spring into them and are off in an instant. The captain, however, remains on the ship, and from the crow's nest directs the boats by a code of signals. The boats always approach their prey under sail, as the use of paddle or oar would startle the whale and cause it to beat a hasty retreat. The old method of whaling with harpoons and lances thrown by hand has been superseded during the last twenty years by the whale-gun, and as a consequence what was once a royal sport has now sadly degenerated. The new weapon is a heavy metallic shoulder-gun fastened to a pole about six feet long. As the boat nears its intended victim, a harpoon attached to several hundred fathoms of line is shot from the gun, and having been "made fast," a bomb, filled with an explosive equal to about ten pounds of giant powder, is fired into the huge body near the head. The missile, exploding as it buries itself in the flesh, blows a great hole almost in the vitals of the monster, and death quickly follows. When the bomb fails to cause instant death or inflict a mortal wound, a second harpoon with a dynamite attachment is thrown, the needle point of the spear, as it sinks into the flesh, exploding the bomb. The second wound nearly always causes instant death; but if not, the harpoons cling to the whale, and with lines attached, the whalers quietly await the reappearance of the whale--which seeks relief by plunging beneath the surface--for another shot at it from the gun, which has in the meantime been reloaded. There is small chance for escape, and another bomb or harpoon from the gun speedily ends the most desperate struggle for life. The sperm whale, the favorite game of the old-time whalers, always puts up a stout battle, but the bow-head whale, found in polar waters, is timid, and dies meekly.