

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 killing 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 affrighte. 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 sealing 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 thefn 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 off 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 
oats, the hunter is obliged to pursue the seals over it, jumping from piece 
iece, until they succeed in taking one, which he then stops to flay and 
mse, 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. Inthis 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 tiplied 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 searnen perished 
