ANTIQUITY OF THE SEAL-FISHERY. 455 



ready for exportation to Canada, England, and the United 

 States. 



The skins are simply salted, and then stored until the 

 time comes for shipping. They are sent to England, 

 where they are manufactured into excellent leather, re- 

 markable for its softness, its polish, and its waterproof 

 qualities. 



The average catch of seals in the Newfoundland fishery 

 has amounted to about 350,000 annually for the last 

 twenty years.* 



The seal-fishery is of great antiquity. From various 

 allusions in the Sagas, it was evidently pursued by the 

 old Norsemen ; and some of these very Sagas, we are 

 told, are written upon seal-skin prepared in the same 

 way as parchment. It was energetically conducted at 

 the epoch of the Roman conquest of Germaiiia, for 

 Tacitus describes the warriors of Hermann or Arminius 

 as clothed in the skins of seals. Of the same material 

 were made the Roman tents, at least during the best 

 days of the Empire ; but it is probable that seals were 

 then more numerous in the Mediterranean than they are 

 now, unless their skins were procured from the north in 

 the course of trade. From the employment of seal-skin 

 as a covering for tents came the old superstition that it 

 was a safeguard against lightning ; and Augustus, whose 

 nervous dread of thunderstorms is an historical fact, al- 

 ways wore a piece upon his person as a talisman. This 

 curious lightning-nonconductor was in great favour with 

 Septimius Severus, and eventually came into general use 



* The number reached 463,531 in 1873; at least, that number of seal-skins 

 was exported. 



