180 REPORT. 



Captain Franklin, standing on the shore of the Arctic ocean, 

 describes the seal as sporting in shoals like porpoises. The dis- 

 covery of islands of great size to the south is not too much to 

 be hoped for, if we may be allowed to draw any inference from 

 the obvious indications afforded by analogy, the observations of 

 experienced navigators, or the natural indications afforded by ice, 

 currents, &c., already known to exist in those regions. Such 

 discoveries are coupled with the certainty, that the profit to be 

 derived from them, in a commercial point of view, may be applied 

 to the great advantage of our common country. 



The land-animal fur- trade has not as yet been much encour- 

 aged, but several persons are now turning their attention to it. 

 The Hudson Bay Company, which has been chartered for one 

 hundred and fifty-nine years, have made the most grasping, exten- 

 sive, and successful monopoly of this trade that is known in the 

 annals of commerce; but a few spirited capitalists, with strong 

 and well-situated factories on the Northwest coast, would soon 

 take no small proportion of this immense trade. In Robson's 

 account of Hudson's bay to the first lord commissioner of En- 

 gland, he says : " There are furs, my lord, on this large tract of 

 land, sufficient to supply all Europe, which yet are locked up by 

 a few men." 



The ivory-trade is becoming important, and will be much more 

 extensive than it now is, when the sea-elephant is hunted for oil, 

 as it will be when the whale becomes less numerous, and more 

 oil is wanted for gas-works, as the great cities get more and more 

 in the habit of using it. The porpoise-oil and seal-oil will be 

 worth making for this purpose. The porpoise-fishery was for- 

 merly not heard of; once in a while, a porpoise was taken by 

 accident ; but now the Indians and others pursue it to a consider- 

 able extent, on our own northeast ernmost coast. 



The feather-trade has not as yet been followed in those seas, as 

 it might have been ; but, from the immense quantity of sea-fowl 



