THE SEAL AND WHALE FISHERY OF 1882. 123 



barely in time to make their arrangements for sailing on the 

 loth, the clay fixed by law for their departure. 



On the 21st May H.M.S. ' Teredos' reported the ice as nearly 

 solid from Cape Breton to Newfoundland ; twenty-one ships were 

 still locked in the ice N.W. of Cape Eace, and one large ship of 

 1000 tons rested forty feet above the water, having been thus 

 forced up by the pressure of the ice, and at the end of the month 

 of May there were still many ships imprisoned in the vast ice- 

 field off Cape Breton. It is not surprising, therefore, that the 

 Dundee vessels were much less successful in that season than in 

 that of 1881, the take of Seals being only 63,204, against 139,986 

 in the previous year. The ' Arctic ' and the ' Thetis ' were the most 

 successful, the former taking 24,663 and the latter 10,598 Seals, 

 the remaining four vessels securing 27,943 Seals between them. 

 The 'Wolf was also reported "full," and the 'Proteus' and 

 'Walrus' (all three belonging to British owners), the former with 

 8000 and the latter with 7800 Seals. The Newfoundland voyage, 

 notwithstanding the difficulties which the vessels encountered, 

 may, so far as the British vessels are concerned, be said, upon 

 the whole, to have been a successful one, although far short of 

 the exceptional season of 1881. The 'Thetis' proceeded from 

 St. John's direct to the Greenland Seal fishery, and succeeded in 

 shooting 3317 old Seals and eight Bottle-nose Whales, thus 

 making a very successful voyage. I believe fourteen vessels 

 belonging to British owners, in addition to the Dundee sealers, 

 left St. John's Harbour on the 10th March. 



The Greenland sealing voyage is a record of successive 

 storms and fogs. Capt. David Gray, of the 'Eclipse,' has 

 pubhshed extracts from his log in 'Land and Water' for 

 December 9th, 16th and 23rd, from which it will be seen how 

 perilous is the navigation of the high latitudes visited by the 

 sealers in the early spring. Not only have they to contend with 

 the ordinary risks of navigation, but there is the constant dread 

 of being beset, and thus losing the precious days which should 

 be employed in searching for the Seals, or even perhaps of being 

 crushed in the pitiless ice. To all this must be added the 

 hardships from cold and fatigue, and the discomforts of a ship 

 constantly engaged in "making off." Surely a "full" ship is 

 not too great a reward for the skill and endurance displayed by 

 these bold and skilful navigators. 



