ship and another attack made upon the leviathan. The mate again in charge of the attacking boat experienced another smashup, for in the battle the whale again turned on the boat's crew and crushed the second boat. The crew was saved and all hands returned to the ship, which proceeded after the whale.

The ship passed on by him, and immediately after it was discovered that the whale was making for the ship. As he came up near her they hauled on the wind and suffered the monster to pass her.

After he had fairly passed they kept off to overtake and attack him again. When the ship had reached within about 50 rods of him the crew discovered that the whale had settled down deep below the surface of the water, and as it was near sundown, it was decided to give up the pursuit.

The ship was moving about five knots, and while Captain Deblois stood at the rail he suddenly saw the whale rushing at the ship at the rate of 15 knots. In an instant the monster struck the ship with tremendous violence, shaking her from stem to stern. She quivered under the violence of the shock as if she had struck upon a rock.

The whale struck the ship about two feet from the keel, abreast the foremast, knocking a great hole entirely through her bottom, through which the water roared and rushed in impetuously. The anchors and cables were thrown overboard, as she had a large quantity of pig iron aboard. The ship sank rapidly, all effort to keep her afloat proving futile.

Captain Deblois ordered all hands to take to the boats and was the last to leave the ship, doing so by jumping from the vessel into the sea and swimming to the nearest boat. The ship was on her beam end, her topgallant yards under water.

They hung around in the vicinity of the Ann Alexander all that night, and the next day the captain boarded his vessel and cutting away the masts she righted, when they succeeded in getting stores from her hold, with which to supply their boats, should it become necessary to make a boat voyage to land.

On August 22 ship Nantucket, Captain Gibbs, cruising in that vicinity, discovered the imperiled sailors and taking them in charge landed them at Paita, September 15th. The Ann Alexander was hopelessly wrecked and left to her fate on August 23.

Five months after this disaster this pugnacious whale was captured by the Rebecca Simms of this port. Two of the Ann Alexander's harpoons were found in him and his head had sustained serious injuries, pieces of the ship's timbers being imbedded in it. The whale yielded 70 to 80 barrels of oil.

WHALERS FITTING OUT

The only other known case of a like nature occurred to the ship Essex of Nantucket, commanded by Captain George Pollard, Jr.

She sailed from Nantucket, August 12, 1819, for a cruise in the Pacific ocean. On the morning of November 20, 1819, latitude 0.40 south and longitude 119 west, whales were discovered and all three boats lowered in pursuit.

The mate's boat soon struck a whale, but a blow of the animal's tail opening a bad hole in the boat, the crew was obliged to cut from him.

In the meantime, the captain's and second mate's boats had fastened to another whale, and the mate, heading the ship for the other boats, set about overhauling his boat preparatory to lowering again.

While doing this he saw a large sperm whale break water about 20 rods from the ship. The whale disappeared, but immediately came up again about a ship's length off, and made directly for the vessel, going at a velocity of about three miles an hour, and the Essex was advancing at about the same rate of speed.

Scarcely had the mate ordered the boy at the helm to put it hard up, when the whale, with greatly accelerated speed, struck the ship with his head just forward of the forechains.

The ship brought up suddenly and violently and