In the Heart of the Sea

previously known Essex crew members plus “Henry De Wit—runaway” (NHA Collection 64, Scrapbook 20). In his discussion of the number of shipkeepers aboard the Beaver in 1791, Clifford Ashley makes the claim that “two men would have been insufficient to handle” a ship of 240 tons (p. 60).
    William H. Macy records the unique pronunciation of Galapagos (p. 167). Colnett’s account of his explorations in the Pacific include a diagram of how to cut up a sperm whale that Obed Macy would use in his History; Colnett describes the Galapagos as a sperm-whale nursery ( A Voyage to . . . the South Pacific Ocean, p. 147). My summary of Hal Whitehead’s observations of sperm-whale society are taken from his articles “Social Females and Roving Males” and “The Behavior of Mature Male Sperm Whales on the Galapagos Islands Breeding Grounds.” Whitehead did not see whales copulating in the Galapagos grounds. “That we never saw copulation is not surprising,” he writes. “Although there are reports in the literature of sperm whales being observed copulating, these reports are few, somewhat contradictory, and not always convincing” (p. 696). Whitehead cites a description made by A. A. Berzin of a male approaching a female from underneath (p. 694).
    The account of repairing a leak on the Aurora is in Stackpole’s The Sea-Hunters (pp. 305-6). According to Reginald Hegarty, “Sea-boring worms could not penetrate metal but if a small piece of copper was accidentally torn off, quite a section of sheathing would soon be so honeycombed that it would wash off, taking more copper with it. The planking would then be exposed and in a short time a section of planking would have its strength eaten away” (p. 60). For an exhaustive description of how leaks were repaired on wooden vessels, see Harland (pp. 303-4).
    Herman Melville’s description of the Galapagos appears in “The Encantadas” (p. 126). On the tortoise’s cool body temperature, see Charles Townsend’s “The Galapagos Tortoises” (p. 93); Townsend also speaks of “Port Royal Tom” (p. 86). For a summary of the history of the post office on Charles Island, see Slevin’s “The Galapagos Islands” (pp. 108-11). Charles Townsend records that “the terrapin on Charles Island were exterminated very early” (p. 89).

CHAPTER FIVE: The Attack
    My description of the scale of the Pacific Ocean is based largely on Ernest Dodge’s Islands and Empires (p. 7); see also Charles Olson’s Call Me Ishmael, especially his concluding chapter “Pacific Man” (pp. 113- 19). For an account of the whalers’ activities in the western Pacific in the early nineteenth century, see Stackpole’s Sea-Hunters (pp. 254-56). Hezekiah Coffin’s death in the vicinity of Timor is referred to in Mary Hayden Russell’s journal of a whaling voyage; after mentioning the island of “Aboyna,” she writes: “[Here] your dear Father in a former voyage had the misfortune to bury his Mate, Hezekiah Coffin, and where he only escap’d the jaws of death himself” (NHA Collection 83). For the islands listed in Pollard’s copy of Bowditch’s Navigator, see Heffernan’s Stove by a Whale (pp. 243-46). Stackpole tells of the first whalers at Hawaii and the Society Islands in The Sea-Hunters (pp. 275-89).
    William Comstock’s description of a mate taking over the harpoon from his boatsteerer is in Voyage to the Pacific (pp. 24-25). Nickerson’s narrative claims that Chase was at the steering oar—not, as Chase claims, at the bow with the harpoon in his hand—during their last two attempts to fasten to whales. In this instance I have decided to trust Chase’s account, although the possibility exists that he was, in fact, at the steering oar and that the ghostwriter introduced an error. Adding to the uncertainty is an earlier statement Chase makes in his narrative: “There are common sailors, boat-steerers, and harpooners: the last of these is the most honorable and important. It is in this station, that all the capacity of the young sailor is elicited; on the dexterous management of the harpoon, the line, and the lance, and in the adventurous positions which he takes alongside of his enemy, depends almost entirely the successful issue of his attack” (p. 17). Contrary to what Chase states in this passage, it was the boatsteerer who threw the harpoon and the mate or boatheader (never called a harpooner, a term used instead to describe the boatsteerer) who was considered the “most