SAILS AND WHALES

While mostly a detailed memento of the last days of whale hunting, this wanders off towards the end into activities outside that field,- in pharmacy, in two world wars, in other briny deep adventures. The whole background that led into whaling offers a personally documented picture of a bygone era. The author was the son of a whaling skipper, was born at sea aboard the bark in 1879, brought up on St. Helena where his father was U.S. Consul in the years when it was rendezvous of the whaling fleets of the South Atlantic and the boy learned to know the ships and their masters, their reputations and their catches, all part of the portrait of the times. So, too, is report after report of the various barks and schooners on which he sailed -- the Canton which gave him confidence because it was a homey ship, the Mermaid, the Falcon, Wave, the (a mutiny here), the a stormy home, and the Sunbeam a hellship, and others which fitted into the Spanish-American War, and cruises other than whaling. There are the whales and their catching, dangers of the cost of a heavy cargo and the aspects of various ports, seas, shipmates and officers -- there is a bountiful plenty for the adventure minded, interested in the splendor of a vanished, cosmopolitan industry. Beyond the excitement of the stories of the whale chase and kill, there is his further career in the Canadian and United States Navies. A man's book of factual, personal experiences, this should have a definite market.