82 Mr. R. Hamilton on the Fur Seal of Commerce. 



tons were annually procured from this spot alone for the Lon- 

 don market, which at a very moderate price, say 501. per ton, 

 would yield about 1,000,000/. per annum. With regard again 

 to the fur seal, from the same island, the English and others, 

 chiefly the Americans, have procured a number of skins which 

 cannot be estimated at less than 1,200,000. From the island 

 of Desolation also, which Capt. Cook first made known, the 

 number has scarcely been smaller nor the profit less ; and 

 finally, with regard to South Shetland, the number taken off 

 by vessels.of different nations, during the two years 1821 and 

 1822 alone, was not less than 320,000. The value of these 

 skins of course varies with the state of the market ; but it is 

 in relation to them, it has been stated in the current edition of 

 the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that " from about the year 1806 

 till 1823 an extensive trade was carried on in the South Seas 

 in procuring seal skins, which in that part of the world are 

 covered with a fine fur. They were obtained," it is added, " in 

 vast abundance by the first traders, and yielded a very large 

 profit. Cargoes of these skins yielded five and six dollars a 

 piece in China, and the present price in the English market 

 averages from thirty to fifty shillings*." 



With regard to the fur seal trade alone several thousand 

 tons of shipping have annually been employed t ; and respect- 

 ing the seal trade generally, it has recently been stated that 

 the English and Americans, who together nearly engross the 

 whole, employ not fewer than sixty vessels of from 250 to 300 

 tons burden J. 



It must be regarded as not a little singular, and yet we be- 

 lieve it is not more singular than true, that this animal, which 

 has been the object of such extensive and profitable pursuit, 

 has not hitherto been described by the scientific naturalist ; so 

 that were any one to turn to works of science, he would not 

 only be unable to ascertain the characters of the fur seal, but 

 would even be at a loss to discover whether in the long cata- 

 logue of the Phocce which has been accumulated, the fur seal 

 has obtained a place. At several distant aeras of the science, 

 indeed, a few indistinct notices of this species of seal may 



* Vol. x. p. 264. f Voy. towards the South Pole. Lond. 1825, p. 54. 

 | Lesson, Diet, Class, des Sc. Nat, 



