American whaling peaked in 1858, but it still found a place on this 1880 fisheries chart. That year, though whaling was still a lucrative business in Massachusetts, a paltry $408 worth of whaling was done in North Carolina. The chart also includes a neat world map of whaling grounds. Some fun facts about whaling: Nineteenth century whalers only got paid for their catch (called the "lay") so every voyage was a complete gamble. Ships that...
"Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it." That's what Theodore Roosevelt said about the Grand Canyon in 1903. But "improving" a piece of land can mean a lot of different things. In the case of this Industries chart from 1890, it meant "cultivating." Huh? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, one early definition of...
