In 1956 the University Library of Aberdeen acquired a journal written by one George Kerr, surgeon aboard the Aberdeen whaling ship Christian, during a voyage to the whale fisheries in the Greenland Sea, west and north-west of Spitsbergen. The voyage, which was in 1791, took them as far north as lat. 81° N. The journal is seventy-nine pages long, on quarto-sized paper, and written in brown ink in a good, clear hand. A number of whalers' log books exist, recording winds and tides and noting extraordinary events, there are also published memoirs covering several voyages or giving a picture of whaling in general—like William Scoresby's book which includes an exciting narrative of the voyage of the Esk, under his command, to Spitsbergen waters, and of her preservation under most difficult circumstances. Kerr's journal is a spirited day-to-day account of an eventful though profitless voyage—the ship returning “clean” with no catch.