A delightful and scholarly study of whaleships and whalers from Cold Spring Harbour, Long Island, a typical secondary port of the US east coast. The history of the Cold Spring Whaling Company is reconstructed, giving details of the fleet's voyages and capturing the essence of whaling as 'one of the most exciting, yet gruelling and often boring occupations ever devised.' There is good supplementary information on the whaling trade in general and on the significant contributions of a secondary port in particular...