THE ANTARCTIC SEAL FISHERIES. 407 



fishermen in the size of the mesh of their nets, have been spared to render annually 100,000 fur- 

 seals for many years 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. 

 This system is practiced at the island of Lobos, mouth of river Plate, whence from 5,000 to 6,000 

 skins are annually taken under the direction of the Argentine Government. The system of 

 extermination was practiced, however, at the South Shetlands ; 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~Cxtinct ; the young, having lost their 

 mothers when only three or four days old, of course died, which at the lowest calculation 

 exceeded 100,000."* 



While in search of new sealing grounds American vessels have cruised over many miles in 

 the Antarctic seas. During the season of 1820-'21, when thirty vessels were at the South Shet- 

 lands, one of the more venturesome of the sealers hoped to discover other fur-seal rookeries still 

 farther south. Captain Pendleton had reported that from an elevated station at South Shetlands 

 he had on a clear day seen land to the southward. Accordingly Capt. N. B. Palmer was sent out 

 from the Shetlands in the sloop Hero, of about 40 tons, to explore the new land. He found it 

 very sterile and desolate, and covered with ice and snow. Plenty of sea-leopards were there, but 

 no fur seal. While returning to the Shetlands the Hero was becalmed in a fog. As the fog began 

 to lift, what was the surprise of Captain Palmer to find his vessel between a frigate and a sloop of 

 war. These strange vessels proved to be two Russian ships on an exploring expedition. The 

 commodore of the ships supposed himself to be the discoverer of the lands to the south, and was 

 greatly surprised to see such a little Yankee vessel in such a remote quarter of the globe. So 

 forcibly was the commodore struck with the circumstances of the case that he named the coast 

 Palmer's Land, in honor of Captain Palmer. 



MAS-A-FUERA, JUAN FERNANDEZ, AND OTHER ISLANDS ON WEST COAST OF SOUTH AMERICA. 



Another very important sealing ground visited by both the English and Americans in the 

 early history of this fishery was the island of Mas-a-Fuera, on the coast of Chili, from which place, 

 between the years 1793 and 1807, upwards of 3,500,000 fur-seal skins were obtained, and most of 

 them taken to China. The first American vessel to take a cargo from this island to China was the 

 ship Eliza, of New York, Captain Stewart, which arrived at Canton in March, 1793, with 38,000 

 skins, that sold for $16,000. In 1798 Captain Fanning took 100,000 skins to China, partly from the 

 same place, in the ship Betsey, of New York, and he estimated that there wa,s still remaining on 

 the island after his departure between 500,000 and 700,000 seals. He estimates that about a million 

 of seal-skins were subsequently taken to Canton from this island. Captain Morrell states that in 

 1807 " the business was scarcely worth following at Mas-d-Fuera, and in 1824 the island, like its 

 neighbor, Juan Fernandez, was almost entirely abandoned by these animals."! 



Delano, in his "Voyages," written in 1817, says: "When the Americans came to Mas-a-Fuera 

 about the year 1797, and began to make a business of killing seals, there is no doubt but there were 

 two or three millions of them on the island. I have made an estimate of more than three millions 

 that have been carried to Canton from thence in the space of seven years. I have carried more 

 than one hundred thousand myself, and have been at the place when there were the people of 

 fourteen ships or vessels on the island at one time, killing seals." J 



* Weddell's Voyage's pp. 141-142. 



t Morrell'8 Voyages, New York, 1832, p. 130. 



{ AMASA DELANO : Narrative of Voyages and Travels ; Boston, 1817 ; p. 306. 



