Abstract
More than three decades ago, John Hughes and Stanley Reiter published an article that has been widely recognized as a major milestone on the path to the “Cliometric Revolution.” In “The First 1,945 British Steamships” (1958), Hughes and Reiter, employing both the techniques of marine engineering and Purdue University’s then newly installed mainframe computer, analyzed the technical characteristics of the British steam mercantile fleet in 1860.1 The authors concluded that, because maritime historians had badly underestimated the carrying capacity of the steam driven fleet, the degree of the new technology’s market penetration was much greater than had been thought. Moreover, they suggested that, current historiography aside, steam had become the dominant maritime technology by the beginning of the sixth decade of the nineteenth century.
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Notes
Jonathan R. T. Hughes and Stanley Reiter, “The First 1,945 British Steamships,” American Statistical Journal, June 1958, Vol. III, No. 282 p. 360. The paper’s title is based on the authors’ initial supposition—later shown to be incorrect—that the “Parliamentary Paper” [No. 449 of Session 1860, Accounts and Papers, 1861, LVII (371)] that was used as the primary source contained an enumeration of the first 1,945 entered permanently into U.K. registry. In fact, the 1,945 refer to vessels that had been built and still operated under U.K. registry at the beginning of 1861.
George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution 1815–1860, Vol. IV of The Economic History of the United States, New York & Toronto: Rinehart & Co. Inc., 1951, p. 58. Basil Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship 1815–1965, Vol. 7 of Basil Greenhill, ed., The Ship, London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1980, p. 17.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, pp. 30–39.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 30.
See Alan Villiers, The Way of a Ship, New York: Charles Scribner’s and Sons, 1953, pp. 2–21; and Björn Landstrom, The Ship, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1961, pp. 200-201.
The fluyt is sometimes called the flute and sometimes the flyboat. See Douglass North, “Ocean Freight Rates and Economic Development,” The Journal of Economic History, Vol. XVIII, No. 4, December 1958, pp. 517-555, and “Sources of Productivity Change in Ocean Shipping,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 76, September/October, 1958, pp. 953-970.
C. Knick Harley, “Ocean Freight Rates and Productivity 1740–1913: The Primacy of Mechanical Invention Reaffirmed,” The Journal of Economic History, Vol. XLVIII, No. 4, December, 1988, pp. 851–876.
Joseph A. Goldenberg, Shipbuilding in Colonial America, Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press, 1976, pp. 4; 80. Published for the Mariner’s Museum, Newport News, Virginia.
Ralph Davis, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry, London, 1962.
Alan McGowan, The Century Before Steam, Vol. 4 of Basil Greenhill, ed., The SHIP, London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1980, pp. 24; 30-31.
A. McGowan, The Century Before Steam, p. 24.
A. McGowan, The Century Before Steam, pp. 31; 33-34.
J. A. Goldenberg, Shipbuilding in Colonial America, p. 59.
A. McGowan, The Century Before Steam, p. 68.
A. McGowan, The Century Before Steam, pp. 75–76.
Howard I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships, New York: W. W. Norton, 1935, p. 15.
A. McGowen, The Century before Steam, pp. 74; 76.
For Britain, see 13 Geo. III, c. 74; for the U.S., see Acts of September 1, 1789 (1 Stat. 55), August 4, 1790 (1 Stat. 169), and March 2, 1799 (1 Stat. 675).
Gerald S. Graham, “The Ascendancy of the Sailing Ship 1850–85,” The Economic History Review, Second Series, Vol. IX, No. 1, August, 1956, pp. 77–78.
John G. B. Hutchins, The American Merchant Maritime and Public Policy, 1787–1914: An Economic History, Harvard Economics Studies, Vol. LXXI, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941, pp. 216–217. The textbook was The Practical Shipbuilder (New York: Collins Keese and Co., 1839. See Howard I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail: 1700–1855, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1967, p. 7.
J. Goldenberg, Shipbuilding in Colonial America, p. 4.
John G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries, p. 217.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, pp. 8–9.
H. I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, p. 279.
5 & 6 Wm. IV, c. 56.
17 and 18 Victoria, c. 104; Moorson’s Law required that registered tonnage be based “on the actual and rigorously investigated cubic capacity of the hull.” G. S. Graham, “The Ascendancy of the Sailing Ship,” pp. 77-79.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, pp. 82–83.
Law of January 1, 1865 (13 Stat. 70-72, R.S. 4153, 46 U.S.C. 77).
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 19.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, pp. 12; 22.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 22.
G. S. Graham, “The Ascendancy of the Sailing Ship,” p. 79.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 295.
Carl C. Cutler, Five Hundred Sailing Records of American Built Ships, Mystic Conn.: Marine Historical Associaton, 1951, p. 109.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 19. Bad design or not, the Charles W. Morgan —which was built expressly for whaling, not for mercantile activities—served 80 exceptionally successful years in the whale fleet and retired (in 1921) only when American whaling had effectively come to a close.
H. I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, p. 283; Isaac Webb is credited by L. H. Boole with the introduction of the half model in the New York area, but Griffiths credits the first half model to David Seabury. See L. H. Boole, The Shipwright’s Handbood and Draughtsman’s Guide, Milwaukee, 1858, and John W. Griffiths, Marine and Naval Architecture, p. 47. One reason for the paucity of information on the design of merchant vessels in the pre-1800 era was the absence of plans or half models. There were few artifacts to leave behind.}
Quoted in H. I. Chapelle, op. cit.
H. I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, p. 364. Griffith’s book was titled the Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Shipbuilding. His magazine was first called The U.S. Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal (1853–55) and then The Monthly Nautical Magazine and Quarterly Review.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 20; and A. McGowan, The Century Before Steam, p. 24.}
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 22.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 302.
E. Keble Chatterton, Sailing Ships: The Story of Their Development from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd., 1909, p. 266.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, pp. 292–293; and E. Keble Chatterton, op. cit. The bilge is a part of the underwater body of a vessel lying between the flat of the vessel’s bottom and the straight vertical topside. Specifically, it is the point of greatest curvature. The term “hard” refers to the angle of that “point of greatest curvature,” i.e. the sharper the angle, the “harder” the bilge. Thus, a hard-bilged vessel has a relatively flat bottom.
E. Keble Chaterton, Sailing Ships: The Story of Their Development, p. 266.
H. I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships, New York: W. W. Norton, 1935, p. 286. One may doubt, given earlier vessels such as the ship-privateer Rattlesnake, the sharp-lined model Hannibal, and the ship-sloops Eirie and Ontario, that Griffiths’s Rainbow can really be termed the first clipper ship, but one cannot doubt that the latter vessel and ships like the Young America, Herald of the Morning, and Lightning were not only beautiful, but also, for a few years, gave the United States a near monopoly of the long distance trade from Europe and North America to the Orient. H. I. Chapelle, op. cit, pp. 282-283.
Donald McKay’s maritime biographer goes so far as to call McKay “the augmentor of the medium clipper model afterward universally used by the American shipbuilders.” (Richard C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder Donald McKay, New York & London: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1928, p. 293.) Chatterton is aware of the fact that McKay, who had designed a number of China clippers, including the Lightning, went on to become the most famous builder of the new class of vessels, and he notes similarities between the two classes of vessel. Even Chapelle, although arguing that the medium clippers were merely larger and better built “revivals of the last and sharpest of the packet-ship models,” recognizes that many of their fittings both on deck and aloft had been developed in the clippers. (H. I. Chapelle, op. cit.)
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, p. 293. “Deadrise” is the term used to refer to the rise of the bottom of the midship frame from the keel to the bilge. It is usually expressed as a ratio of inches per foot.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 295.
Donald McKay, The Scientific American, November 26, 1859. Cited in R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, pp. 266–267.
J. G. B. Hutchins, op. cit.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 26.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, pp. 380–381.
H. I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships, pp. 286–287; J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 273. See also Basil Lubbock, The Down Easters: American Deep-water Sailing Ships 1869–1929, Glasgow: Brown, Son, & Ferguson, 1929.
Samuel Eliot Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts 1783–1860, Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1921, p. 318.
S. E. Morison, op. cit.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 19; Stanley Rogers, The Sailing Ship: A Study in Beauty, New York: Harper & Bros., 1950, p. 23.
H. I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships, p. 288; B. W. Bathe, “The Clipper’s Day.” In Joseph Jobe, ed., The Great Age of Sail, London: Patrick Stephens Ltd., 1967, p. 205.
“Annual Review of the Whale Fishery for 1826,” Whalemens’ Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript, January 13, 1863.
Stanley Rogers, The Sailing Ship, p. 23.
B. W. Bathe, “The Clipper’s Day,” pp. 205–206.
H. I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships, p. 288.
Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript, September 9, 1851; August 3, 24, and 31, 1852.
B. W. Bathe, op. cit.
“Annual Review of the Whale Fishery in 1875,” Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchant Transcript, January 11, 1876.
“Annual Report of the Whale Fishery for 1876,” The Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript, January 16, 1877.
“The Annual Review of the Whale Fishery for 1877,” The Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript, January 25, 1878.
“In both the United States and Great Britain the configuration was originally known as a bark, but that term, perhaps because of nineteenth century Romanticism, was modified to barque in Britain, although North American usage continued with the earlier spelling.” A. McGowan, The Century Before Steam, p. 30.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 219; Gordon Grant, Ships Under Sail: An Outline of the Development of the Sailing Vessel, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1939, p. 24.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder Donald McKay, pp. 213–215.
A “snow” was an eighteenth-century vessel that closely resembled a brig (two masts, both fore-and-aft rigged), except that its gaff-rigged “brigsail” was set on a separate trysail mast attached to, but abaft, the mainmast.
H. I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships, pp. 16; 294. The spanker was a small fore-and-aft sail used even on otherwise square-rigged ships to make steering a course simpler.
H. I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, p. 279.
Stanley Reginald Harry Rogers, Sailing Ships: A Study in Beauty, New York: Harper & Bros., 1950, p. 27. The quotation is from Alan Villers, The Way of a Ship, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953, p. 14.
E. K. Chatterton, Sailing Ships, p. 266.
A. Villers, op. cit.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, p. 93.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 28; and S. Rogers, Sailing Ships, p. 27.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, p. 250. Robert Benet Forbes had begun life as a merchant captain, but in 1845 had quit the sea to build the nation’s first large (300-ton), ocean-going, steam tug. From there he went on to become “one of the largest Boston ship owners and a China merchant, who experimented with all kinds of inprovements in vessels.” Among those “experiments” was an attempt in the 1850s to employ a staysail rig on a commercial schooner. Although that rig ultimately became standard on yachts, it was one of Forbes’s few commercial failures. See Carl C. Cutler, Greyhounds of the Sea: The Story of the American Clipper Ship, New York & London: Charles Putnam’s Sons, 1930, p. 119; J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 415; and H. I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships, p. 356. Captain (William) Frederick Howes first tested the Howes’s sails (a major improvement over Forbes’s design) on the clipper that he commanded, the Hayden & Cutworth-built Climax, on a voyage to California in 1853. See Jacques and Helen La Grange, Clipper Ships of America and Great Britian 1833–1869, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1936, p. 192.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, pp. 250–251; 284-285.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, pp. 298; 382-383; R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, pp. 214-215; and H. I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships, p. 290. Running rigging is used primarily in setting, furling, and otherwise handling sails, and it usually runs through blocks and pulleys. Standing rigging is permament (stays and shrouds, for example) and is used to secure masts and fixed spars. It is the futtock shroud that connects the topmast rigging to the lower mast. The total duties on the ironwork for a 1,000-ton vessel rose from two-percent of its total cost in 1850s to ten to 12 percent in the next decade. See J. G. B. Hutchins, op. cit.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, pp. 381–382; A. Villiers, The Way of a Ship, pp. 110-113. The quote is from Villiers.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 382.
H. I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, pp. 364–365; B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 28. Jeers are combinations of tackles used for hoisting or lowering the lower yards.
H. F. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, p. 279; R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, pp. 124-125.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, p. 214.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, p. 213; B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, p. 28.
A. Villiers, The Way of a Ship, pp. 122–125. Villiers writes, “Handling the braces at the side of the ship was always heavy and frequently also dangerous work, especially when the men were squaring in the yards in heavy weather and the ship was rolling her rails under. Men were often washed away while trying to brace. They either went over the side or they were spilled about the deck to grave danger of life and limb … For centuries things had been more or less like this, and everyone put up with it. It was part of the profession. Braces were awkward, bracing was heavy, and the loss of life had to be accepted. But then along came Captain Jarvis and put an end to all this …”
Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchant Transcript, October 5, 1852.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, p. 215.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, pp. 124–125.
Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript, November 16, 1852.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, pp. 233–234.
B. Greenhill, The Life and Death of the Merchant Sailing Ship, pp. 38–39.
Except where otherwise indicated, the following material is drawn from Thomas G. Lytle, Harpoons and Other Whalecraft, New Bedford: The Old Dartmouth Historical Society Whaling Museum, 1984, pp. 136-165.
In Moby Dick, a crewman falls into a decapitated carcass and has to be delivered by Caesarian section, conducted with a spade.
Ibid., p. 137.
Charles W. Scammon, The Marine Mammals of the Northwestern Coast of North America, Reprint Edition, New York: Dover Publications, 1968, p. 238.
Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript, December 21, 1852; November 30, 1852.
Thomas G. Lytle, Harpoons and Other Whalecraft, New Bedford Old Dartmouth Historical Society 1984, pp. 149; 152; 165.
A. McGowan, The Century Before Steam, p. 27.
J. A. Goldenberg, Shipbuilding in Colonial America, p. 71.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 398.
H. I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, p. 279.
B. W. Bathe, “The Clipper’s Day,” p. 207.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, pp. 398; 330-331.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, pp. 394–395.
H. I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, p. 279.
J. G. B. Hutchins, op. cit.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, pp. 45–46.
J. G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, p. 395.
James B. Morris, Our Maritime Heritage: Maritime Developments and Their Impact on American Life, Washigton D.C.: University Press of America, 1979, pp. 164–165.
J. M. Morris, Our Maritime Heritage, p. 198.
G. S. Graham, “The Ascendancy of the Sailing Ship 1850–85,” p. 79.
An Act of July 10, 1832 (4 Stat. L., 570,571), for example, called for a survey of the coasts of the United States. See Gustavus A. Weber, The Hydrographic Office: Its History, Activities, and Organization, Institute for Government Research, Service Monographs of the United States Government, No. 42, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1826, pp. 8; 12.
G. A. Werner, The Hydrographie Office, p. 13. The Congressional Act was that of August 26, 1842 (5 Stat. L., 534). Although that Act called for the publication of only one-hundred copies, subsequent acts provided for reprints and their distribution.
G. A. Weber, The Hydrographie Office, p. 19. The Act was 10 Stat. L., 100, 104 of August 31, 1852.
G. S. Graham, “The Ascendancy of the Whaling Ship 1850–85,” pp. 79–80.
A. Villiers, The Way of A Ship, pp. 78–79.
R. C. McKay, Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder, p. 115; and G. A. Weber, The Hydrographie Office, p. 17.
G. S. Graham, “The Ascendancy of the Sailing Ship,” pp. 79–80.
A. Villiers, The Way of A Ship, p. 79.
G. S. Graham, op. cit.
The quotation is from the legislation that called for the publication of the material. 49 Cong. 1 sess., S. rep. 1285, pp. 26; 27.
W. A. Weber, The Hydrographie Office, p. 18.
G. S. Graham, op. cit.
W. A. Weber, op. cit.
Jorma Ahvenainen, The Far Eastern Telegraphs: The History of Telegraphic Communications between the Far East. Europe and America before the First World War, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1981, p. 30 and passim. See, also, Charles Bright, Imperial Telegraphic Communications, London: P. S. King and Son, 1911; and Leslie Bennett Tribolet, International Aspects of Electrical Communications in the Pacific Area, New York: Arno Press, 1972.
Charles M. Scammon, The Marine Mammals, p. 216.
Much of the information on inventions comes from Lytle. This excellent book is concerned chiefly with invention, per se, rather than with innovation and diffusion. See, also, Scammon, Marine Mammals.
In the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth, boats were typically smaller than this, and typically carried five men. The shift to boats of the size described in the text, manned by six sailors, came relatively late. Obed Macy, The History of Nantucket, Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Co., 1835, pp. 141-142.
“The equipment belonging to a modern whale-boat consists of one mast and yard, or sprit, one to three sails (but usually a jib and mainsail), five pulling-oars, one steeringoar, five paddles, five rowlocks, five harpoons, one or two line-tubs (into which the line is coiled), three hand-lances, three short-warps, one boat-spade, three lance-warps, one boatwarp, one boat hatchet, two boat-knives, one boat-waif, one boat-compass, one boat-hook, one drag, one grapnel, one boat-anchor; one sweeping-line, lead, buoy, etc., one boat-keg,one boat-bucket, one piggin, one lantern-ket (containing flint, steel, box of tinder, lantern, candles, bread, tobacco, and pipes), one boat-crotch, one tub-oar crotch, half a dozen chock-pins, a roll of canvas, a paper of tacks, two nippers, to which may be added a bombgun and four bomb-lances; in all, 48 articles, and at least 82 pieces.” “The full equipment as here enumerated, is modified to suit the particular branch of whaling pursued, as for instance, in deep-sea whaling, there is no use for the anchor, and in sperm whaling, the sweeping-line, buoy, etc., are not required; while in California Gray whaling in the bays or lagoons, the anchor is indispensable, and the grapnel, sweeping-line, lead, and buoy, are of much service. But many other articles are left out or supplied to a limited extent, so that the boat may be as light as possible, and work easily and quickly in shallow water.” (C.M. Scammon, The Marine Mammals of the North-western coast of North America, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, pp. 224-225.)
Lytle, p. 33.
Ibid., p. 11.
New Bedford Whaling Museum, James Durfee, Ms. 56, Box 22, Series D, Sub-Series 13; Swift and Allen, Ms. 5, Box 37, Volume 85. We believe that we have looked at every outfitting list and every record of a manufacturer of whalecraft housed in the New Bedford Whaling Museum, The Melville Room of the New Bedford Public Library, the libraries of Harvard University, and the G. W. Blunt White Library at Mystic, Connecticut.
Lyttle, p. 16.
G. W. Blunt White Library, Mystic Seaport, Inc., Outfit book of the bark Globe, 3rd Voyage, 1869, New Bedford, VFM 425.
C.M. Scammon, Marine Mammals, p. 316.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, May 31, 1853.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, July 19, 1853.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, December 14, 1852.
Lytle, pp. 80-81.
J. N. Tonnessen and A. O. Johnsen, The History of Modern Whaling, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982, p. 18.
Tonnessen and Johnsen, pp. 18-20; Lytle, Chapter 6. The former volume cites business problems. Lytle (p. 128) records the following words from the posthumus patent: “These last improvements made by Roys are intended to remedy the defects in the implement as formerly constructed, and which actually rendered it to a great extent impracticable.”
Lytle, p. 133.
J. M. Swank, History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, 1892, p. 514.
G. W. Blunt White Library, op. cit., Charles W. Morgan Papers, 1798–1861; Account Book, 1842–1848, Coll. 27, Vol. 35; Emily Morgan, Vol. 24; ship Magnolia, December 1842; ship Francis Henrietta, November 1843; Mary Frazier (bark), Memorandum of Whaler’s Outfits, 1876, VFM 1461; Julius Caesar (ship) papers, New London Coll. 167, Box 1/8.
C.M. Scammon, Marine Mammals, p. 316.
Similar means were attempted to make harpoons deadly. Lytle’s comment on the prussic acid lance probably can be applied to the rest, as well: “It is doubtful that this type of lance was ever used in the American whale fishery.’ (p. 134.) It was used in the English fishery at least once, with great success; i.e., it killed the whale. However, the Whalemen’s Shipping List reported (August 16, 1860) that “… the men were so appalled by the terrific effect of the poisoned harpoon that they declined to use any more of them.” The electric harpoon was a German innovation that was reported to have been used in the Pacific by vessels sailing from Bremen, as well as by French vessels. The apparatus consisted of a 350-pound battery and a hand-cranked generator. The inventor claimed great success for it, but it seems not to have had much of an impact on the industry, certainly not on the American industry. See the stories in the WSL on June 8, July 5, August 3, 1852, and April 12, 1853.
The first report of a bomb lance in the WSL was on August 17, 1847: “The whole apparatus is certainly ingenious; whether or not it is really an improvement on the present mode of killing whales, is more than we are able to say. “By November 13, 1855, the newspaper was able to assert: “Guns for driving the harpoon have, we believe, been pretty generally abandoned …” but the bomb lance was being used “quite extensively.” See, also, stories and ads on December 14, 1852 (reporting an accident with an exploding whale gun); November 16 and 23, 1852; June 7, 1853; July 11, 1854 (which reports that the problem of the kick has been solved in the new Brown gun); December 25, 1855; May 26, 1857; June 8, 1858; September 14, 1858; October 5, 1858; December 13, 1859; and September 27, 1864.
C. M. Scammon, Marine Mammals, p. 316; John L. Williams, List ca. 1882 of Provisions Needed to Outfit a Whaling/Sealing Vessel for Sea, VFM 1430, Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration, George F. Baker Foundation, 1878–1886.
Swift and Allen, op. cit.; Outfit book of the bark Globe, op. cit.; G. W. Blunt White Library, op. cit.; schooner Lottie Beard, New Bedford Ms. 252; and Order Book, Frank E. Brown, New Bedford Whaling Implements, 1877-1922, Ms. 252, Vol. I. Butler points out that the bomb lances were particlarly useful in the Arctic, to keep whales from escaping under the ice. “Since this was not a problem when hunting the sperm whale, and because the noise of the guns scattered the other whales in the school, sperm whalemen made less use of these weopons.” Martin Joseph Butler, /. & W. R. Wing of New Bedford: A Study of the Impact of a Declining Industry upon an American Whaling Agency, Ph.D. Dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University, 1973, p. 42.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, November 11, 1851.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, September 27, 1864.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, December 13, 1855.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, December 12, 1855.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, June 8, 1858.
Whalemen’s Shipping List, March 28, 1865; December 12, 1855.
John Williams, op. cit.; C. M. Scammon, Marine Mammals, p. 316.
The data on New Bedford whaling is drawn from five different sources. The first, and most important, is the manuscript prepared by Joseph Dias, a retired New Bedford whaling captain [Joseph Dias, “The New Bedford Whaling Fleet, 1790–1906,” manuscript on deposit at the Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston Massachusetts]. Dias’s work has been supplemented by Alexander Starbuck, “The History of the Whale Fishery,” in Report of the United States Commission on the Fish and Fisheries, 1878, part 4; Reginald Hagarty, Returns of the American Whaling Vessels Sailing from American Ports: A Continuation of Alexander Starbuck’s “History of the American Whale Fishery,” 1878-1928, New Bedford, Mass.: Old Dartmouth Historical Society and Whaling Museam, 1959; Federal Writers’ Project, Works Progress Administration of Massachusetts, Whaling Masters, New Bedford, Mass., 1938; and Dennis Wood Abstracts, 5 volumes, 1831–1873, Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, New England Microfilming Project, 1970. For a more thorough review of the studies, see L. Davis, R. Gallman, and T. Hutchins, Of Men and Whales, University of Chicago Press forthcoming.
Douglas W. Caves, Laurits R. Christiansen, and W. Erwin Diewert, “Multilateral Comparisons of Output, Input, and Productivity Using Superlative Index Numbers,” Economic Journal, Vol. 92, March, 1982, pp. 73-86. For a more complete discussion of the index and its applicability to American whaling see L. Davis, R. Gallman, and T. Hutchins, “Productivity in American Whaling: The New Bedford Fleet in the Nineteenth Century,” in D. Galenson, ed., Markets in History: Economic Studies of the Past, Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 97-147.
Only voyages that ended with the vessel safe in New Bedford are included. Loss rates were by no means small (Lance E. Davis, Robert E. Gallman, and Teresa D. Hutchins, “Productivity in American Whaling: The New Bedford Fleet in the Nineteenth-Century,” in David Galenson, ed., Markets in History: Economic Studies of the Past, Cambrdige: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 108), so that the restriction of the data set to returning vessels is an important restriction. How one should incorporate lost vessels in an analysis of productivity is by no means obvious. We have not found a solution to this problem. The model treated in this section has been described at length in the paper cited above (pp. 111-147). This source describes a test that we devised to establish how well the model explains the historical evolution of productivity (pp. 127-128). The test was very successful.
It should be said, however, that time variables are the most common indexes of technology in most econometric work. The adequacy of the time dummy used in this model is discussed at some length and tested further in “Productivity in American Whaling,” pp. 133-134.
See “Productivity in American Whaling,” pp. 131-133. Advanced vessels are those carrying whaling guns and/or toggle irons.
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Davis, L.E., Gallman, R.E. (1995). The Last 1,945 Sailing Ships. In: Ledyard, J.O. (eds) The Economics of Informational Decentralization: Complexity, Efficiency, and Stability. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2261-4_8
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