154 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



first observed young ice forming on the surface to- 

 day ; it was about the thickness of brown paper, 

 and there was much of it along the front of the 

 great glacier, and wherever the sea was protected 

 by icebergs from the wind. 



I rowed for several miles close along the front 

 of the glacier, and killed some seals. 



During the whole day there was a continual suc- 

 cession of loud booming reports from the edges of 

 the smooth glaciers falling in toward the disrupted 

 part. These explosions seemed to alarm the seals 

 very much, and caused me to lose several which I 

 had marked. 



The sea in-shore swarmed with shrimps, medu- 

 sae, and the little black-winged tadpoles before men- 

 tioned. 



The " flensing" of a seal or walrus is, in one re- 

 spect, a most horrible sight, for, immediately the 

 skin and blubber is stripped off, the carcass begins 

 to shrink and quiver so violently as even to seem 

 as if it was struggling under the hands and knives 

 of the operators. This shocking appearance is ow- 

 ing to the contraction of the muscles, caused by the 

 sudden cold ; the "subject" is, in fact, undergoing 

 the well-known process of crimping. 



Whenever a life is taken, there is an immediate 

 assemblage of those vultures of the north, the beau- 

 tiful ivory gulls (Larus eburneus, nivens, glacialis), 

 which seem to be guided to their prey by the same 

 wonderful instinct as the vultures of Africa or the 



