THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 233 



unsuspectingly remain while their fellows were slain 

 and skinned ; but latterly they have learned to 

 guard against the new dangers, by placing them- 

 selves on insulated rocks, from which they can in 

 a moment throw themselves into the water. We 

 may form a notion of the zeal with which this com- 

 mercial enterprise was prosecuted, as well as of its 

 valuable character, if it had been pursued with pru- 

 dent restrictions, from the fact that in the years 

 1821 and 1822, there were taken from the South 

 Shetland Isles, 320,000 skins of Fur-Seals, and 9-10 

 tuns of Sea-Elephant oil. The former valuable ani- 

 mal might, by proper precautions, have been made 

 to produce 100,000 skins annually, for a long time 

 to come. " This would have followed from not 

 killing the mothers till the young were able to take 

 the water ; and even then, only those which appeared 

 to be old, together with a proportion of the males, 

 thereby diminishing their total number, but in slow 

 progression. The system of extermination was prac- 

 tised, however, at South Shetland ; for whenever a 

 Seal reached the beach, of whatever denomination, 

 he was immediately killed and his skin taken ; and 

 by this means, at the end of the second year, the 

 animals became nearly extinct ; the young, having 

 lost their mothers when only three or four days old, 

 of course all died, which, at the lowest calculation, 

 exceeded lOO^O.' 1 * 



Other species of Otaries, which frequent these 

 seas, have large heads, clothed with long shaggy hair, 



* Weddell's Voyage, p. 141. 

 v 2 



