520 FAMILY PHOCID^. 



south of Kerguelen's Island, for in no other way could their cap- 

 tains account for the continuous suj)ply of the sea-elephant on 

 its shores. As long ago as 1849 Captain Thomas Long, then of 

 the Charles Carroll, reported to the owners of his ship that he 

 had seen land froin the masthead, while sailing south of Kergu- 

 elen's Laud ; but Cajjtain Head has received the credit of the 

 discovery, although he did not land upon the island. The man 

 who first did this was Captain E. Darwin Eogers. He was on 

 a cruise after sperm whale ; his ship was the Corinthian, and he 

 had three tenders ; and his employers were Perkins and Smith 

 the same Smith heretofore mentioned. Captain Eogers com- 

 memorated his success by an onslaught upon the sea-elephants, 

 which he found very numerous on the shore ; and after securing 

 four hundred barrels of oil, improved the first opportunity to 

 inform his emj)loyers of what he had done, urging them not 

 only to keep the information secret, but to dispatch another ves- 

 sel to the newly discovered island The firm purchased a 



ship at once. Captain Smith took command, and sailed for Heard's 

 Island. With Captain Darwin Rogers as his right-hand man he 

 fully explored the island, named all its headlands and bays 

 and other prominent features, made a map of it, and succeeded 

 in filhng all his vessels with oil. Two exploits which he per- 

 formed with the assistance of his several crews, are worth men- 

 tioning : At one point, which he called the Seal Rookery, they 

 slaughtered five hundred of these animals, and as was after- 

 ward found, thereby exterminated the race in that locality ; and 

 they performed the marvelous labor of rolling three thousand 

 barrels of elephant oil a distance of three miles, across a neck of 

 the island, from one hore to another, where their vessel was 

 anchored. The ship which he himself commanded returned in 

 safety to New London with a cargo of oil valued at $130,000, 

 one-half of whic'h was his own property." 



Continuing the account he says : " The number of these ani- 

 mals which annually resort to Heard's Island, coming from 

 unknown regions, is truly immense. In former times the men 

 who hunted them invariably spared all the cubs they met with, 

 but in these latter days the young and old are slaughtered in- 

 discriminately. We can give no figures as to the total yield of 

 elephant oil in this particular locality, but we know that the 

 men who follow the business lead a most fatiguing and wild 

 life, and well deserve the largest profits they can make. While 

 Kerguelen's Laud is the place where the ships of the elephant 



