HUNTING SEALS AND MORSES. 401 



LONG-NOSED SEAL. 



the time in a sea which is any thing but Pacific, while they 

 are often at the distance of thousands of miles from any sup- 

 ply or assistance. Still, when successful, it is profitable, both 

 for the oil and the skins. The species in most esteem for 

 oil are the long-nosed ones, called sea-elephants by the fishers 

 among the earless seals, and the maned-seal, or sea-horse, 

 among those who have external ears. But they differ much 

 with the latitudes and also with the longitudes of the places 

 at which they are taken. Those most in request for their 

 fur are those which are popularly called sea-bears ; but there 

 are many species which get the name of fur-seals. Seal oil 

 is accounted purer and better than that of the Cetacea, unless 

 when obtained from the spermaceti, or half-crystallised stea- 

 rine ; and the great markets for it are Europe and America. 

 The three principal kinds of sea oil are whale oil, seal oil, 

 and cod oil, the last obtained from the livers of the fish, and 

 preferable to every other from the dressing of leather. We 

 believe that, by some absurd custom-house law, whale oil is the 

 only one of the three which is called fish oil, although it is 

 not fish oil ; and that, in some places at least, the others 

 escape the annoyance, both of the protections and prohibitions 

 which affect this. A good many of the the skins are also 



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