398 THRILLING ADVENTURES. 



carried discovery into a higher latitude than it had previously 

 reached in those seas. On the 20th of February, 1823, he 

 reached the latitude of seventy-four degrees fifteen minutes, 

 which is higher by two hundred miles than any other navi- 

 gator had penetrated into the antartic ice. No land, how- 

 ever, was seen in that longitude (about thirty-five degrees 

 west) to the southward of New Georgia, which is a distance 

 on the meridian of about fifteen hundred miles. Since that 

 period other adventurous navigators have proceeded still far- 

 ther. As the seals are among the rocks, or in the more 

 shallow waters, small vessels answer best for this fishery ; 

 and in all coasting fisheries, or other operations in the water 

 along shore, small trim vessels are always the safest and the 

 most manageable. The complement of men is abaut twenty- 

 four. The vessels are strongly timbered and double planked. 

 The rigging of the vessels is also very simple, but very sub- 

 stantial. They have generally a smaller vessel, about forty 

 tons burden, which can be stationed near the shore as a ge- 

 neral rendezvous for the fishing-boats, which are usually six 

 in number, and constructed in the same manner as whale- 

 boats. A good deal of skill and experience are required in 

 choosing the ground ; and when the proper spot has been se- 

 lected, the vessel is moored in a safe place, and the apparatus 

 for boiling the oil erected on the beach. The small vessel 

 thus acts the part of a tender between the boats and the sta- 

 tion. The seals are chiefly surprised and knocked on the head 

 while on the rocks ; and when this is over for the time, they 

 are skinned and cut in pieces, which are stowed away in the 

 small vessel. A load of the small vessel consists of about two 

 hundred seals, which yield from eighty to a hundred barrels 

 of oil. When the vessel arrives at the part where the boiling 

 is carried on, the cargo is delivered and boiled, the flesh of 

 the seals after the oil is extracted serving for fuel. 



This fishing is one of great hardship, and often of great 

 peril. The ships are sometimes out for three years, and all 



