OEDEE OF AMPHIBIA. 109 



the hyperborean climate. For the Greenlanders especially, the 

 Seal is of universal utility. It yields them nearly all they 

 want, and renders life endurable in the cold country which they 

 inhabit. 



The Greenlander eats the flesh of the Seal, and is contented 

 with it, although it is tough and has a disagreeable smell. 

 He drinks its oil, or lights his hut with it. With its skin 

 he makes clothes, wrappers, tents, and canoes ; or else cuts 

 it up into straps and thongs. Its muscles and tendons are con- 

 verted into thread for sewing, and into strings for bows. Its 

 blood even, mixed with other substances, forms a sort of soup. 

 Everything, even to the membranes in the interior of the body, 

 is turned to account ; properly dried, these serve, owing to their 

 transparency, to close the openings which admit a little light to 

 the Greenlander's wretched hovel. 



And so the only occupation, as we may say, of the Greenlanders, 

 is Seal hunting. From their j^oungest days they are trained 

 to this exercise, which is for them a matter of life and death. 

 Sometimes they launch out to sea, in their fragile skin boats, and 

 harpoon their prey when it comes to the surface to breathe ; at 

 other times thej^ envelop themselves in Seal skins, stretch them- 

 selves on the shore, and endeavour to attract some unwary Seal 

 by their deceitful similitude to itself. 



The Esquimaux take the Seal also in the following manner. 

 They make a hole in the ice, and the moment one of these animals 

 presents itself to breathe the air at the improvised skylight, thej^ 

 seize it (Fig. 29). 



The English and the Americans of the United States are the 

 only ' people who organize Seal hunting on a large scale. They 

 fit out annually sixty ships, of from two hundred and fifty to 

 three hundred tons each, for this purpose. The principal object 

 of these expeditions is to obtain the oil with which the flesh of 

 this aquatic Mammifer is saturated. The bodies, cut in pieces, 

 are thrown into boilers set up on the beach. When the oil is 

 separated by fusion, it is put into barrels, and exported to Europe 

 or to America, where it is sold at the rate of eighty francs a 

 barrel. Each Seal supplies about half a barrel of oil [much more 

 or less, however, according to the species]. 



For a very small profit, the peasants on the coast and in the isles 



