MACQUAEIE AND AUCKLAND ISLANDS. 317 



the adventurous sealers discovered an apparently almost inexhaustible supply of these 

 animals on the numerous small islands off the southeastern coast of New Zealand. 

 Borders Island was discovered by Captain Pendleton, of the American brig Union, 

 of New York, in 1802. Although he reached here toward the end of the sealing sea- 

 son, he sectired some 14,000 fur-seal skins. He also visited Antipodes Islands, where 

 he left a crew of men to take seals and await the return of the vessel from Sydney, 

 New South Wales, which, however, was lost on a subsequent cruise to the Fiji Islands. 

 On the receipt of this sad news at Sydney, " Mr. Lord chartered a ship and proceeded 

 with her to the island of Antipodes. At this place the oflftcers and crew whom Cap- 

 tain Pendleton had left there had taken and cured rising of 60,000 prime fur-seal 

 skins, a parcel of very superior quality.'" 



Polack states that Macquarie Island was discovered by a sealing master in 1811, 

 who procured there are a cargo of 80,000 seal skins.^ 



Mr. A. W. Scott states, on information furnished by a professional sealer named 

 Morris: 



In New South Wales the sealing trade was at its height from 1810 to 1820; the first sj'stematic 

 promoters of which were the Sydney firms of Cable, Lord & Underwood, Riley «Sr, Jones, Birne, Hoak 

 & Campbell. * * * To so great an extent was this indiscriminate killing carried that in two years 

 (1814-15) no less than 400,000 skins were obtained from Penantepod, or Antipodes Islands alone, and 

 necessarily collected in so hasty a manner that many of them were imperfectly cured. The ship 

 Pegassus took home 100,000 of these in hulk, and on her arrival in London the skins, having heated 

 during the voyage, had to be dug out of the hold, and were sold as manure, a sad and reckless waste 

 of life.» 



According to other authorities, the New Zealand sealing industry ceased to be a 

 paying investment prior to 1863. 



Respecting the Auckland Islands, Morrell says : 



In the year 1823 Capt. Robert Johnson, in the schooner Henry, of New York, took from this island 

 and the surrounding islets about 13,000 of as good fur-seal skins as were ever brought to the New 

 York market. » » * Although the Auckland Isles once abounded with numerous herds of fur and 

 hair seals, the American and English seamen engaged in this business have made such clean work of 

 it as scarcely to leave a breed; at all events, there was not one fur seal to be found on the 4th of Jan- 

 uary, 1830. ■• 



Early in the present century many fur and hair seals were taken from Bounty 

 Isles near the southern end of New Zealand; from the Snares and the Traps, from 

 Stewarts, Chatham, and Campbells islands, and also from other islands to the south- 

 ward of New Zealand; but at most of these points they appear to have become very 

 soon practically exterminated. A few survived the general slaughter, and in recent 

 years, under the protection of the government of the colony of New Zealand, have so 

 far increased that there have been of late years a small annual catch of fur seals in 

 the New Zealand waters, amounting to from 1,000 to 2,000 per year.= 



' Fanning, Voyages, etc., p. 326. ^ Morrell, Voyages, p. 363. 



sPplack, New Zealand, II, p. 376. "Aflfidavit of Emil Teiohmann. 



^ Scott, Mammalia, Recent and Extinct, Pinnata, pp. 18, 19. 



