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A richly illustrated sketchbook that documents the techniques, equipment, and daily life of traditional whaling through detailed plates and diagrams. Sequential images and captions depict fitting out, sail handling, whaleboats, harpooning and lancing, the struggle of the chase, cutting-in and rendering blubber, shipboard trades and tools, and shore activities such as gams and recruiting. A foreword frames the material by contrasting the romantic image of sail whaling with mechanized modern whaling, while the artwork emphasizes technical accuracy, danger, and the labor and culture of the whalemen.
Some English and Scottish whalers carried surgeons, but it was not the custom in Yankee ships. Whatever casualties befell his men, the captain attended to as best he could.
Heroic tales are related of bone settings and amputations without anesthetics aboard whaleships that pay high tribute to the fortitude of that vanished race of hardy seamen.