THE OCEAN MAMMALS 361 



bones, and converted into a valuable fertilizer, which is 

 put into sacks for exportation. Little or nothing of the 

 carcass is wasted; the blood itself goes into fertilizer. 



Even during the few years the industry has been prose- 

 cuted, it would seem as if the whales had decreased in 

 number. 



In 1904 two companies fished and killed 153 whales, 

 valued at $73,440. 



In 1905 three companies fished and killed 149 whales, 

 valued at $42,318. 



In 1906 two companies fished and killed 85 whales. 



In 1907 two companies fished and killed 94 whales. 



Of the 149 whales killed in 1905 there were five sulphur- 

 bottoms, 101 finbacks, 43 humpbacks. A fall in the price 

 of oil and the inferior quality of the catch accounted for 

 the great drop in value from the previous year. 



If codfish and salmon are essential to the white inhabitants, 

 seals and walrus are none the less the mainstay of the 

 aboriginal coast dwellers the Eskimo. Alas for these 

 people, the increasingly vigorous prosecution of the seal- 

 fishery from Newfoundland with larger and larger steamers 

 has already begun to tell on the numbers of the seals, and 

 especially on the commonest and most valued, the harp 

 seal (Phoca Grcenlandica) . The Eskimo of Labrador are 

 slowly being driven back and dying out before the tide of 

 white population, and there can be no question that im- 

 proved rifles, improved seal-nets, and the steam sealers 

 have been potent factors in their downfall. 1 No one 



1 Fortunately one of the Eskimo's favourite seals, the "netsek," 

 does not come south at all, but whelps in holes excavated by it in the 

 solid body of the great ice pans. 



