THE ANTARCTIC SEAL FISHERIES. 405 



as with a good lookout at the masthead any rock that would take a vessel up would be seen ; but 

 to be caught by a sudden squall, terminating in a gale, and night coming on, while returning from 

 the outer rocks, the uavigation is as bad as it can well be. In the winter, in thick, blowing 

 weather, the nights are eighteen hours long. During the forty months that I was constantly 

 working that coast in the schooner Florence, a time extending over three winters and four sum- 

 mers, I of course passed through many bad times and tight places, and how I got clear I can't 

 tell, and I don't think any one else can tell, even those who are in the business, but I got through 

 it without any injury to the vessel or the loss of a man ; still, other vessels have not been so for- 

 tunate, most all have lost more or less men. The report came a few days ago of two sealing vessels 

 that had lost men this past season. I sailed in the Eliza Jane from New Bedford, October 2, 

 1861, and after some rather rough experience in the vicinity of Cape Horn, in the mouths of May 

 and June, having lost an anchor and got out of several bad scrapes, I came up the east coast of 

 Patagonia, and lost her on the 5th of August, 1862, 60 miles up the Gulf, west of Rio Negro, in a 

 heavy gale from the south. We all suffered greatly for want of water before arriving at the river, 

 which passage we made on foot without the loss of a man." 



THE SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS. 



The South Shetlands, or, as sometimes called, New South Shetland s, is an archipelago in the 

 South Atlantic Ocean, about 300 miles south of Cape Horn, included between latitude 60 32' to 

 67 15' south, and longitude 44 53' to 68 15' west. There is no vegetation except a species of 

 moss. The principal islands of the group are Adelaide, Bridgeman, Smith, Saddle, Coronation, 

 Livingston, King George, and Elephant. 



Capt. Edmund Fanning, of Stonington, who visited the South Shetlands more than fifty years 

 ago, describes the group as "a chain of rough, rocky, and mountainous islands whose valleys or 

 chasms are partially filled with everlasting ice, and during the greatest part of the year they are 

 covered with snow. The chain consists of upwards of fifty islands, stretching in a southwest and 

 northeast direction. The navigation among the group is dangerous on account of many sunken 

 reefs. The weather is similar to that of South Georgia. There is very little earth or vegetation, 

 except the winter moss, and not a tree or shrub to be found. Deception Island, (he most south- 

 erly, is a curious phenomenon of nature, and is beyond doubt of volcanic origin. In form it is a 

 mountain ridge, making the interior round the bay in appearance an immense bowl, while in the 

 east side, as it were, is a piece broken out ; this forms an opening or passage by which vessels 

 enter the bay. At the northeast inner bay side is the harbor called Yankee Harbor, near to 

 which, along the shore, is a stream of hot or boiling water; this keeps the water of the bay, for a 

 little distance round, quite warm, and is much resorted to by disabled and wounded penguins, 

 who appear fond of and anxious to remain in it. By scraping down a few inches into the sand of 

 the beach, a few yards distant from the boiling fount, the heat is so great as to render it impos- 

 sible to-hold the hand in any length of time, notwithstanding very near by, in the cavity of the 

 mountain, is an iceberg of solid flint ice several hundred feet in height."* 



Sealing on the South Shetland Islands began in 1819, when the brig Hersilia, of Stouington, 

 Conn., and an English vessel from Buenos Ayres visited the islands and obtained cargoes of very 

 rich fur-seal skins. In the year 1818 Captain Smith, in the English brig William, bound from 

 Montevideo to Valparaiso, discovered,! on the 15th of October, in latitude 62 30' south, and 

 longitude 60 west, a new land where were fur-seal in abundance. 



"Fanning 1 !* Voyages, New York, 183:?, pp. 4X5,434. 



tThe islands were first discovered about the year 1600 by Captain Gherritz, a Dutch navigator. 



