xx INTRODUCTION 



the world, the vessels would not be lost to 

 sight of each other. 



Again, although our sailors of Brittany and 

 Normandy have always fished off the coasts of 

 Iceland and amid the shoals of Newfoundland, 

 an undertaking quite as arduous and dangerous 

 as whaling, it is curious that no French Company 

 has ever attempted to exploit the seals of Green- 

 land, or the sea-elephants of the Antarctic, to 

 be found in thousands off Kerguelen Island, 

 which a Frenchman discovered. 



I recently learnt with great pleasure that a 

 young French captain, Rallier du Baty, who 

 accompanied Charcot on his first southern 

 expedition, manned a simple Boulogne fishing 

 smack of forty tons and visited Kerguelen 

 Island. After having hunted the sea-elephants 

 for a year, he sailed for Australia to sell his 

 cargo of oil and skins, thus crossing the Atlantic 

 and Indian Oceans. 



A nation whose sailors are so regardless of 

 danger would not, without a very good reason, 

 have permitted such a period of maritime enter- 

 prise, so commercially profitable to our neigh- 

 bours, to pass without participating in it, even 

 though the wholesale extermination of animals 

 be cruel. 



The naval predominance of the English 



