ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 45 



tenderness and good nature. It has a muzzle and jaws of about the 

 same size and form observed in any full-blooded Newfoundland dog, 

 with this difference, that the lips are not flabby and overhanging; 

 they are as firmly lined and fjressed against one another as our own. 

 The upper lips support a yellowish white and gray mustache, com- 

 posed of long, stiff bristles, and when it is not torn out and not broken 

 off in combat, it sweeps down and over the shoulders as a luxuriant 

 plume. Look at it as it comes leisurely swimming on toward the land ; 

 see how high above the water it carries its head and how deliberately 

 it surveys the beach, after having stepped upon it (for it may be truly 

 said to step with its fore flippers, as thej^ regularly alternate when It 

 moves up), carrying the head well above them, erect and graceful, at 

 least 3 feet from the ground. The fore feet, or flippers, are a pair of 

 dark bluish-black hands, about 8 or 10 inches broad at their junction 

 with the body, and the metacarpal joint, running out to an ovate 

 point at tlieir extremity, some 15 to 18 inches from tliis union, all the 

 rest of the forearm, the ulna, radius, and humerus being concealed 

 under the skin and thick blubber folds of the main body and neck, 

 hidden entirely at this season, when it is so fat. But six weeks to 

 three months after this time of landing, when that superfluous fat and 

 flesh has been consumed by self- absorption, those bones show plainly 

 under the shrunken skin. On the upper side of these flippers the 

 hair of the body straggles down finer and fainter as it comes below to 

 a jjoint close by and slightly beyond tliat sjjot of junction where the 

 phalanges and the metacarpal bones unite, similar to that jioint on 

 our own hand where our knuckles are placed ; and here the hair ends, 

 leaving the rest of the skin to the end of the flipper bare and wrin- 

 kled in places at the margin of the inner side; showing also fine 

 small pits containing abortive nails, which are situated immediately 

 over the union of tlie phalanges with their cartilaginous continuations 

 to the end of the flipper. 



On the under side of the flipper the skin is entirely bare, from its 

 outer extremity uj) to the body connection; it is sensibly tougher and 

 thicker than elsewhere on the body; it is deeply and regularly 

 wrinkled with seams and furrows, which cross one another so as to 

 leave a kind of sharp diamond-cut pattern. When they are j)laced by 

 the animal upon the smoothest rocks, shining and slippery from 

 algoid growths and the sea-polish of restless waters, they seldom fail 

 to adhere. 



When we observe this seal moving out on the land, we notice that, 

 though it handles its fore feet in a most creditable manner, it brings 

 up its rear in quite a different style, for after every second step ahead 

 with the anterior liml)s it will arch its spine, and in arching it drags 

 and lifts up, and togethei* fo)-ward, the hind feet to a fit position under 

 its body, giving it in this manner fresh leverage for another move- 

 ment forward by the fore feet, in which the sj)ine is again straightened 

 out, and then a fresh hitch is taken up on the posteriors once more, 

 and so on as the seal progresses. This is the leisurely and natural 

 movement on land when not disturbed, the body all the time being 

 carried clear of and never touching the ground. But if the creature 

 is frightened, this method of progression is radically changed. It 

 launches into a lope, and actually gallops so fast that the best powers 

 of a man in running are taxed to head it off. Still, it must be remem- 

 bered that it can not run far before it sinks trembling, gasping, beath- 

 less to the earth; 30 or 40 yards of such speed marks the utmost limit 

 of its endurance. 



