NOVEL CAPTURE OF WHALES.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 424, 15 November 1861, Page 2

NOVEL CAPTURE OF WHALES.

A very interesting paper has just been published by Professor Christison, the result of some experiments suggested as long ago as 1831 by Messrs. W. and G. Young, of Leith, for the capture of whales by means of poison, the agent being hydrocyanic or prussic acid. This subtle poison was contained in glass tubes, in quantity about two ounces. Among other difficulties, one was to discharge the poison from the glass tubes at the right time. After various trials, the plan fixed upon was to attach firmly to each side of the harpoon, near the blade, one end of a strong copper wire, the other end of which passed obliquely over the tube, thereby securing it in its place, then through an oblique hole in the shaft, close to the upper end of the tube, and finally to a bight in the rope, where it was firmly secured. By .these means the rope could not be drawn tight, as it would when | the harpoon' attached to it struck the whale, with- \ out crushing the tubes; the poison would then enter the whale, and death ensue. The Messrs. V onng accordingly sent a quantity of tubes charged with the poison, by one of their ships engaged on the Greenland fishery, aud on meeting with a fine whale the harpoon was skillfully and deeply buried in its body. The leviathan immediately 'sounded,' or dived perpendicularly downwards; but in a very short time the rope reluxed, and the whale rose to the surface quite dead. But the men were so' appalled by the terrific effect of the poisoned harpoon, that they declined to use any more of them. Subsequent experiments tend to convince the learned professor that success will be established in this method of capturing the niighty leviqthan of the d,eep,