THE ANTARCTIC SEAL FISHERIES. 403 



2. THE SEALING GROUNDS. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF SEALS IN SOUTHERN OCEANS. 



The Southern fur seal (Arctocephalutt australis), which is huuted for its valuable skin, is found 

 iu but few localities in Antarctic waters or south of the equator. The principal grounds now vis- 

 ited by the sealing fleet are the lonely outlying rocks in the vicinity of Cape Horn. At the South 

 Shetlands, a desolate group of islands south of Cape Horn, these animals were very abundant sixty 

 years ago, and during the years from 1871 to 1876, some good-cargoes of very superior skins were 

 secured there, but since the latter date the number of fur seals killed at these islands has been 

 very small. The other sealing grounds are at Kergueleii Land and Heard's Island, in the Southern 

 Indian Ocean. But at these islands very few seals are now annually taken. At the mouth of the 

 River Plate in South America is Lobos Island, where a few thousand fur seals annually congregate. 

 This small rookery is protected by the Government of the Argentine Republic, which allows only 

 a limited number of seals to be captured each year. 



It is possible that on some undiscovered islands in the far south there may still be a consider- 

 able abundance of these animals. The adventurous sealers of New England occasionally go in 

 search of new islands or revisit those where fur seals were once so plenty. 



The sea-elephant, or elephant seal (Macrorhinus leoninus), yields an oil little inferior to sperm 

 oil. It is found in abundance only iu southern oceans, and generally in about the same localities 

 as the fur seal. The place of its greatest abundance is at Heard's Island, in the Southern Indian 

 Ocean, a small desolate pile of rocks and ice about 15 or 20 miles iu extent. This place has, from 

 year to year been visited by the hardy sealers, who have, however, been poorly paid for their toil, 

 since even here, where once the seal were found by thousands, they can now be taken in but small 

 numbers, and these only on almost inaccessible beaches. At the island of South Georgia, in the 

 Southern Atlantic, two or three vessels during the past ten years have secured fair cargoes of sea- 

 elephant oil. One vessel, the Trinity, made some very successful voyages to South Georgia a few 

 years ago, and then, in the hope of securing greater profit, made a voyage to Heard's Island, and 

 was lost there in 1880, her crew being rescued from their lonely island home by a United States 

 vessel sent to their relief. 



At the beginning of the present century the fur seal was in great abundance on nearly all the 

 islands off the west coast of South America, from Cape Horn to the equator, and was taken in 

 great numbers from the islands of Juan Fernandez and Mas-a-Fuera, from St. Felix and St. Ambrose 

 Islands, the Gallipagos and numerous other islands off that coast. It was captured also in 1820 

 to 1825 at the South Shetlands in great quantities. The islands of the Falkland Group, the South 

 Georgia Islands, the Sandwich Group, and other places south and east of South America, were 

 annually visited by fleets of vessels. Off the west coast of Africa they were taken as late as 1835 

 to 1840, when they became almost extinct. At Desolation or Kerguelen Land, at the Aucklands, 

 the Antipodes, the Crozet Group, and everywhere ou islands iu those cold waters, the fur-seal 

 was, found and captured; but so eager were the sealers for gain that no regard was paid to the 

 danger of exterminating the animals by an indiscriminate slaughter of young and old seals, so that 

 it was but a comparatively short time before once famous sealing grounds could no longer be 

 visited with profit to the hunter. 



Almost the same story might be told in regard to sea-elephants, for wherever they were found 

 they were slaughtered. This animal is still far more abundant than the fur-seal in southern seas, 

 but is nowhere found in such great herds as were once seen on the Falkland and other islands. 

 Thousands of barrels of elephant oil were taken fifty years ago by American and English vessels 



