306 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [ Vou. IIL. 
$4 to $6 and the old ones at from $4 to $5 per cwt. The price, however, 
is regulated by the value of the oil in the British market. A young seal 
will weigh from 30 to 50 pounds, and an old seal from 80 to 200 pounds. 
It is calculated that the fat of 80 young harp seals will produce a ton of 
oil. The seal fishery is a constant scene of bloodshed and slaughter. 
Here you behold a heap of seals writhing and crimsoning the ice with 
their blood, rolling from side to side in dying agony. There you see 
another lot, while the last spark of life is not yet extinguished, being 
stripped of their skins and fat, their writhings and heavings making the 
unpractised hand shrink with horror to touch them. The seal fishery 
being prosecuted during the vernal equinox is rendered particularly dan- 
gerous. It is a voyage of hopes and fears, trials and disappointments, and 
the prosecution of it causes more anxiety, excitement and solicitude than 
any other business in the island. Sometimes the seals are sought after 
at a distance of from two to four miles from the vessel, over huge rugged 
masses of ice, and during this toilsome journey the men have to jump 
from one pan of ice to another, across horrid chasms where yawns the 
dark blue water ready to engulf them. Sometimes “slob,” or ice ground 
up by the action of the waves and covered with snow, is mistaken for 
hard ice, and the poor sealers leaping upon it are at once buried in the 
ocean. Not unfrequently, when the sealers are at a distance from 
the vessel in search of their prey, a freezing snowdrift or a_ thick 
fog comes on, when no object around can be descried, and the distant 
ship is lost. The bewildered sealers gather together. They try one 
course, then another, but in vain, no vessel appears. The lights shown 
from the vessel cannot be seen, the guns fired and horns blown cannot be 
heard. Night comes on, and the wretched sealers perish through fatigue, 
cold, and hunger on the glittering surface of the frozen deep. Scarcely 
a fishing season passes but the widow’s wail and the orphan’s cry tell of 
the dreary, the dreadful death of the seal hunters. Sometimes vessels are 
crushed between two large masses of ice called “rollers,” when all on 
board are consigned to one common destruction. The islands of ice or 
icebergs, are dreadful engines of destruction. Many of these iron-bound 
ships come in contact with them, and sometimes vessel and crew perish 
together. 
The Newfoundland seal is different from the Behring sea seal. The 
Newfoundland seal is what is called the hair or bearded seal. They are 
sought after for the value of their fat instead of their fur. The New- 
foundland sealskins are worth not more than 50 or 60 cents apiece, where- 
as the fur seal, when dressed, is worth $60 a piece, in first hands. All 
the Newfoundland seals are whelped on the ice and not on the land as 
the fur seal. 
