made a contribution to 19th century literature: Henry Kendall and Herman Melville served on Sydney whalers as young men and later wrote about the experience, Kendall as a poet and Melville in Omoo (1847) although he is better known as the author of Moby Dick (1851). Many leading entrepreneurs owned whaling ships. John Macarthur, Robert Campbell, Benjamin Boyd and Robert Towns in Sydney, and Alexander McGregor, William Crowther, Askin Morrison and Alexander Imlay in Hobart were prominent entrepreneurs who diversified their business interests by owning whaling ships. Others were indirectly involved, supplying such vessels with provisions, equipment and dockside services in port. Whale oil and baleen (whalebone) taken by bay whalers, and sperm whale oil taken by pelagic whalers, were among Australia's earliest exports. Sealing and whaling contributed more to the colonial economy than land produce until the 1830s when the fisheries were overtaken by wool production. Whaling was a significant commercial enterprise in colonial Australia, contributing export commodities worth £3.3 million between 1831 and 1845. The trade peaked in the 1830s, in terms of the number of vessels involved and the value of whaling exports, before experiencing a series of setbacks. These included a decline in productivity due to depleted whale stocks, the start of a major economic depression in 1840, a series of gold rushes on mainland Australia starting in 1851, the discovery that mineral oil could be made into petroleum the use of which superseded whale oil as a lamp fuel and a realisation that a better and more reliable return could be obtained from investment in fine wool production. Modern whaling Modern whaling using steam-powered vessels and bow-mounted harpoon guns with explosive heads developed in the second half of the nineteenth century and allowed larger and faster swimming species to be hunted. The later introduction of factory ships with a stern ramp enabled captured whales to be dragged onto the deck and processed with greater speed and safety. Norway was the leading whaling nation by the end of the nineteenth century and the introduction of modern whaling in Australia, as elsewhere, was associated with Norwegian entrepreneurs, ships and mariners. Norwegian businessman Henrik Johan Bull was living in Australia in the 1890s when he conceived the idea of using Melbourne as a base to whale in the Antarctic. Unable to interest local investors, he returned to Norway and approached Svend Foyn (1809-1894) generally regarded as the founder