[Illustration: The Dutch boiling oil on shore in a huge “try-works,”
which was the early method of preparing the oil.]
In 1612 the Dutch became the leaders and were still very active about
1680, employing two hundred and sixty ships and fourteen thousand
seamen, and during the last part of the seventeenth century they
furnished nearly all Europe with oil. To them is attributed the
improvements in the harpoon, the line, and the lance, and to their
early prominence in the industry we owe the very name “whale,” a
derivation from the Dutch and German word “wallen,” meaning to roll
or wallow. They established a whaling settlement at Spitzbergen, only
eleven degrees from the North Pole, where they boiled the oil; in fact,
during the early days of whaling all nations “tried out” their oil on
land. The Dutch continued to be the leaders until about 1770, when the
English superseded them owing to the royal bounties.