AFTER THE SEAL 



bundles and taken aboard, though many fleets set up 

 their furnaces on the beach and boil the carcasses as well, 

 for these yield a surprising quantity of oil. 



When the ships reach their own ports the blubber 

 is separated from the hides; the latter are dried and 

 salted for export to England and the States, where they 

 will be converted into leather, while the blubber is 

 crushed by machinery, steamed, exposed in open tanks to 

 the air and sun, and finally put into barrels. 



Between Cape Horn and the Tropic of Capricorn are 

 various other kinds of seals. One of them, the narrow- 

 snout, more nearly approaches a fish form than any other, 

 for its claws are small and drawn together, so that they 

 look like the serrated edge of a fin. The roaring noise 

 made by this variety during the night has often deluded 

 sailors into the belief that it proceeded from the bellowing 

 of cattle on shore. 



To the fishermen there are but two classes of seals, 

 haired and furred. Under the first head come all those 

 that are pursued for the sake of their fat and their hide ; 

 under the second, those whose thick growth of velvety 

 under-hair makes the animals one of the most valuable 

 captures that the sea has to offer. True, the fur seal has 

 plenty of oil of its own, but it is of so rank a nature that 

 it is seldom thought worth while to go to the expense of 

 clarifying and cleansing it. 



The best fur-yielders are the seals from round Cape 

 Horn and those found in the Behring Sea ; several 

 millions of the latter haunt the Alaska coast during the 

 season. Yet, in spite of such apparent abundance, the 



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