FAUNA AND FLORA. 273 



of live coral at the bottom of Ross Sea excited no small 

 surprise at the time. These southern regions possess 

 also a rich abundance of protozoa, which are present in 

 every quarter, but the forms that have a most important 

 bearing- on the general biology and on the sedimentary 

 formations, viz., the globigernia and the radiolaria are 

 more commonly superseded by the above-mentioned 

 vegetable diatomacese. 



It is. obvious now, that whatever products the Ant- 

 arctic regions yield belong exclusively to the animal 

 kingdom, the existence of useful coal beds in the South 

 Shetland Isles being as yet very problematical. For the 

 economic uses of man only seals and whales seem of 

 importance, and even these do not seem to be offering 

 a promising prospect, seeing that so far the only voyage 

 to Victoria Land to be repeated is that of the Antarctic. 

 The main cause of this state of things is the absence of 

 a valuable species of whales and of the fur-bearing seal, 

 which, once abundant enough, have been exterminated. It 

 is said that in the early twenties of the nineteenth century 

 over 300,000 individuals were killed, in addition to about 

 1,200,000 destroyed between the re-discovery of South 

 Georgia by Cook and the year 18 10, i.e., in barely forty- 

 five years. Weddell says that the seal skins of American 

 hunters mostly exported to China fetched $5 a piece ; 

 calculated on this basis the above numbers would re- 

 present a sum of ,£1,500,000. At the present time these 

 exceedingly costly skins would naturally fetch much 

 higher prices. As seal-hunters carried on their hideous 

 butcheries without any discrimination and barely left even 

 sucklings unmolested, and these, then, perished from want 

 of care and nurture, it is not surprising that this exceed- 

 ingly valuable breed of seals should have been all but 

 extirpated within a few years, to the great loss of the 

 shortsighted seal-hunters themselves. 



t> 



18 



