Like Father, Like Son
"Trained from infancy to the navigation of the frozen seas under the direction of his father, a most enterprising and successful leader, [William Scoresby, Jr.] conjoined experiences with ingenuity and judgement... he prosecuted a regular course of study at the University of Edinburgh, which, enriching his mind with liberal attainments gave a new impulse to his native genius and ardour." - Sir John Leslie
The son of famed Captain Scoresby took up his pen in 1820 to write the first original work in Britain regarding the origin and processes of the Arctic whale-fisheries. Being more interested in the scientific discoveries in the Arctic regions, many of these chapters discuss phenomena such as the effects of the sun on ice, the salt levels of the sea, and calculating the temperature of the sea during unobserved months.
Scoresby’s second publication comes from the journal he kept on his voyage aboard the Baffin in the summer of 1822. This ship bore the same name of the sea that carried him north. He describes and illustrates his findings as he traveled even farther north than his father before him. While the pursuit of the whale was the reason for sailing north, the younger William Scoresby was intrigued by science. He discovered new islands and new species on this voyage.
From the age of 12, William Scoresby hunted whales with his father off the coast of Greenland. In this book, he gives insight into the process of whale-fishing in the Arctic. While his father had passed away many years before the publication of this text, Scoresby frequently refers back to his inventions and discoveries including the crow’s nest that all arctic ships adopted.