34 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



fords nearly its own bulk of fine oil, amounting, I 

 am told, sometimes to upward of a barrel. {Quaere, 

 does Dr. De Jongh know any thing of Squalus 

 Groenlandicus ?) 



This little vessel appeared to have been pretty 

 successful, as her sides were quite white and silvery 

 from the sharks being dragged against them ; and 

 I confess the sight made us regret that my yacht's 

 ground-tackle was neither long enough nor light 

 enough to admit of our participating in the amuse- 

 ment. 



When these men kill a shark, they have a curi- 

 ous practice of inflating its stomach with a bellows 

 and tying the gullet, in order to make the carcass 

 float, as, if it sank to the bottom, all the other 

 sharks would devote their attentions to their de- 

 funct friend, to the neglect of the seal's blubber. 



About two A.M. on the 1st of July we passed 

 Bear or Cherie Island, so called, I presume, on the 

 lucus a non lucendo principle, because it certainly 

 produces neither bears nor cherries at the present 

 day. I believe the real reasons for its nomencla- 

 ture are, that some of the early Dutch navigators, 

 on their way to China, once saw a bear here, and 

 that an English expedition, sent out by Alderman 

 Cherie, of London, afterward erroneously fancied 

 that they were the discoverers of the island, and 

 tried to supplant its original name by that of their 

 patron. There is said to be plenty of good coal 

 cropping out of a precipice on the island. 



