and 50deg. South; but there the drawback of heavy weather
and mountainous seas severely handicaps the fishermen.
It is somewhat of a misnomer to call the Coast of Japan ground by
that name, since to be successful you should not sight Japan at
all, but keep out of range of the cold current that sweeps right
across the Pacific, skirting the Philippines, along the coasts of
the Japanese islands as far as the Kuriles, and then returns to
the eastward again to the southward of the Aleutian Archipelago.
The greatest number of whales are always found in the vicinity of
the Bonin and Volcano groups of islands, which lie in the eddy
formed by the northward bend of the mighty current before
mentioned. This wonderful ground was first cruised by a London
whale-ship, the SYREN, in 1819, when the English branch of the
sperm whale-fishery was in its prime, and London skippers were
proud of the fact that one of their number, in the EMILIA, had
thirty-one years before first ventured around Cape Horn in
pursuit of the cachalot.
After the advent of the SYREN, the Bonins became the favourite
fishing-ground for both Americans and British, and for many years
the catch of oil taken from these teeming waters averaged four
thousand tuns annually.
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