Economical Uses of the Seal, at ISfewfoimdland. 39 



to have seals on them ; — the crews, armed with heavy firelocks 

 and bludgeons, there land, and, in the course of a few weeks, 

 destroy nearly 300,000 of these animals for their fat and skins.* 

 The skins, with the fat which surrounds the body, are taken off 

 together, and the scalped carcases left on the ice. When the 

 vessels are loaded with these scalps, or otherwise, when the ice 

 is scattered and dissolved by the advancing spring, which it al- 

 ways is, except the islands, before the middle of May, they re- 

 turn to their respective ports ; the fat is then separated from 

 the skins, and exposed in vats to the heat of the sun, where, 

 in from three to five weeks, it is rendered into the seal-oil of com- 

 merce * The field-ice extends, with interruptions, more than 

 200 miles off the land, but the vessels in general have not to go 

 so far to look for the seals : The fields are even met with at 

 sea continuous in a northerly and southerly direction for that 

 extent, at that distance from land. 



As these fields of ice are not formed at Newfoundland, and 

 only partially formed at Labrador, the herds of seals which are 

 found on them, when they appear at these places, must have 

 come from the sea farther north, where the main body of the 

 ice is formed, viz. from the Greenland Sea, and that in the vi- 

 cinity of Davis"* Straits. The Greenland winter, it would ap- 

 pear, is too severe for these animals, and when it sets in, they 

 accompany the field-ice, which winds and currents carry south- 

 ward, and remain on it until it is scattered and dissolved in the 

 ensuing spring, in about Lat. 43° N., or about 200 miles south 

 of Newfoundland. Old and young of these animals being then 

 deserted in the ocean by their birth-place, nature points out to 

 them the course to their favourite icy haunts, and thither their 

 herds hurry over the deep to pass an arctic summer. Winter 

 returns, and with it commences again their annual migration 

 from latitude to latitude. 



There are five different kinds of seals found on the field-ice 

 at Newfoundland, all known in the Greenland seas. The three 

 best known of which are, 1^^, The Harp (Phoca groenlandica), 

 the one-year old of which is called the Bedlimmer ; ^d, The 

 Hood or Hooded Seal (Phoca leonina,) ; and, 3c/, The Square- 



* From 3000 to 4000 tons of seal-oil, according to the success of the fish- 

 ery, is made annually. The seal-fishery is prosecuted by the British only. 



