HARPOCRATION, VALERIUS, a celebrated ancient rhetorician of Alexandria, who has left us an excellent Lexicon upon the ten orators of Greece. Aldus first published this lexicon in the Greek at Venice in 1603. Many learned men have laboured upon it; but the best edition was given by James Gronovius at Leyden in 1696.
HARPOON or HARPING-IRON, a spear or javelin used to strike the whales in the Greenland fishery.
The harpoon, which is sometimes called the harping-iron, is furnished with a long staff, having at one end a broad and flat triangular head, sharpened at both edges, so as to penetrate the whale with facility: to the head of this weapon is fastened a long cord, called the whale-line, which lies carefully coiled in the boat, in such a manner as to run out without being interrupted or entangled. See WHALE-FISHERY, CETOLOGY INDEX.