MAMMALIA — SEAL. 207 



the distance with accuracy, he flings the dart, and never fails to strike. 

 The seal, terrified and wounded, dives in the greatest terror ; but a float 

 being attached to the dart by a leathern line, he is soon forced up again 

 and despatched. 



European and American ships are sent to the high northern latitudes to 

 procure the oil and skins of seals, which are of extensive importance in 

 commerce and manufactures. 



One mode of ^iilling the seal, is to go to the caves on shore, into which 

 herds of seals occasionally enter. When the sealers are properly placed, 

 they raise a simultaneous shout, at which the affrighted animals rush out 

 in great confusion, and are dispatched with wonderful quickness, by a single 

 blow on the nose, struck with a club. They are very tenacious of life when 

 struck or wounded on any other part of the body. 



The best situation for scaling in the Arctic seas, is stated by Scoresby, 

 to be in the vicinity of Jan Mayen's Island ; and the best season, the months 

 of March and April. When the boats arrive at the ice, the sealers imme- 

 diately attack the animals with clubs, and stun them by a single blow over 

 the nose, which mode enables one person to destroy a large number of seals ; 

 when they are seen on pieces of drift ice they are hunted by means of boats, 

 each boat pursuing a different herd ; should the seals attempt to leave the 

 ice before the arrival of the boat, the sealers shout as loudly as possible, and 

 produce such amazement in the seals by this uproar, as to delay their flight 

 till the boat arrives and the work of destruction is begun. Where the seals 

 are very numerous, the sealers stop not to flay those they have killed, but 

 set oS" to another ice field to kill more, merely leaving one man behind to 

 take off the skins and fat. When the condition of the ice forbids the use of 

 boats, the hunter is obliged to pursue the seals over it, jumping from piece 

 to piece, until they succeed in taking one, which he then stops to flay and 

 flense, or to remove the skin and fat. This sometimes is a horrible busi- 

 ness, since many of the seals are merely stunned, and occasionally recover 

 after they have been flayed and flensed. In this condition, too shockingly- 

 mangled for description, they have been seen to make battle and even to 

 swim off. 



The number of seals destroyed in a single season, by the regular sealers, 

 may well excite surprise. One ship has been known to obtain a cargo of 

 four or five thousand skins, and upwards of a hundred tons of oil. Whale 

 ships have accidently fallen in with and secured two or three thousand 

 of these animals during the month of April. The sealing business is, how- 

 ever, very hazardous when conducted on the borders of the Spitzbergen ice. 

 Many ships, with all their crews, are lost by the sudden and tremendous 

 storms occurring in those seas, where the dangers are vastly multiplied by 

 the driving of immense bodies of ice. In one storm that occurred in the 

 year 1774, no less than five seal ships were destroyed in a few hours, and 

 six hundred valuable seamen perished. 



