R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. 67 



5. Commercial Importance of the " Seal Fisheries" 

 The Greenland {i.e. Spitzbergen) sealing fleet from the British 

 ports meets about the end of February in Bressa Sound off Lerwick, 

 in Zetland ; it leaves for the north about the first week in March, 

 and generally arrives at the ice in the early part of that month. 

 The vessels then begin to make observations for the purpose of 

 finding the locus of the Seals, and this they do by crawUng along 

 the edge of the ice, and occasionally penetrating as far as possible 

 between 70° and 73° N. lat. ; then continue sailing about until 

 they find them, which they generally do about the first week of 

 April. If they do not get access to them, they remain until 

 early in May, when, if they intend to pursue the whaling in the 

 Spitzbergen sea that summer, they go north to about 74° N. lat. 

 to the "old seahng," or further still (even to 81° N.) to the 

 whaling. Most of them however, if not successful by the middle 

 of April, leave for home to complete their supplies in order to 

 be off by the first of May to the Davis's Strait Whale fishery. 

 During the month of March and the early part of April, the 

 sealers are subject to all vicissitudes of weather, calm and storm 

 suddenly alternating, while the thermometer will stand for weeks 

 at zero, or even many degrees below it. 



The number of Seals taken yearly by the British and Conti- 

 nental ships (principally Norse, Dutch and German) in the Green- 

 land sea, when they get among them, will average upwards of 

 200,000, the great bulk of which are young " Saddlebacks," or, 

 in the language of the sealer, " white-coats." When they have 

 arrived at their maximum quality, 80 generally yield a tun of 

 oil, otherwise the general average is about 100 to the tun. In 

 1859 good oil sold for about 33/. per tun ; add to this the value 

 of 100 skins at 6s. each, and the whole will amount to 58/. sterling. 

 From this simple calculation a very good estimate may be formed 

 of the annual commercial value of the Greenland '• Seal fishery," 

 for, supposing 2,000 tuns of oil to be about the annual produce, 

 and assuming 58/. as the value per tun, inclusive of the skins, 

 the whole produce of the fishing will amount to the yearly value 

 of 116,000/. sterling {Wallace). This, of course, does not take 

 into calculation the produce the Danish Government derive from 

 their colonies on the west coast of Greenland (which I notice 

 under the head of each Seal), nor what the Russians derive from 

 the coast of Spitzbergen and from the White Sea. The " fishery," 

 however, is very precarious. Some years little or nothing is got, 

 the ice being too thick for the ships to " get in to them." In 

 one year it may happen that the fishery in the Spitzbergen sea 

 proves a failure, while the Newfoundland one is successful. For 

 some years past it has proved in the former sea almost a failure.* 



* It has been rather more successful in Newfoundland. This year (1868), 

 up to the 28th of April, 25,000 Seals had arrived at St. John and Harbour 

 Grace. See a good account of the sealing by the continental vessels in Peter- 

 mann's " Geograph. MittheiL," Feb. 1868. In 1866 the steamer "Camper- 

 down " obtained the enormous number of 22,000 Seals in nine days. It is 

 nothing uncommon for a ship's crew to club or shoot in one day as many as 

 from 500 to 800 old Seals, with 2,000 young ones. 



E 2 



