USEFUL TO THE MERCHANT 137 



in these times, new countries are continually opening 

 -is marts of traffic, and new channels of commerce 

 are making their way even into the heart of Africa, 

 the man who possesses this sort of information, and 

 turns it to advantage, not unfrequently realises a 

 fortune ; while he, who, like the Sheffield cutler, 

 sent a large consignment of patent skates to Buenos 

 Ayres*, thinking they would, in a new country, 

 sell for an enormous sum, may very likely be 

 ruined. Every one knows the importance of our 

 fisheries, particularly those for the whale and the 

 seal. Had laws been made by our legislators for 

 the preservation of the former, on the same principle 

 as they so sedulously preserve their own game, we 

 should not hear of the Greenland fisheries being 

 almost ruined ; — no one, indeed, could have drawn 

 up a parliamentary bill for this purpose, without a 

 competent knowledge of the natural history of the 

 animal whose race was to be preserved ; — while in 

 regard to the seal fisheries, they might be extended, 

 beyond all doubt, in parts of the Southern hemisphere 

 hitherto entirely neglected. The fur trade, again, 

 opens a field for the practical use of natural history : 

 for, independent of the necessity of accurately dis- 

 criminating the different species whose skins form an 

 article of commerce, how much might this trade be 

 extended and benefited by a merchant well acquainted 

 with the geographic range of these animals, the 

 peculiar times when their furs are in the finest con- 

 dition, and what countries are destitute of such 



* A fact which occurred in 1806. 



