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NOTES ON THE SEAL AND WHALE FISHERY, 1898. 

 By Thomas Southwell, F.Z.S. 



At eight o'clock on the morning of the 10th of March, 1898, 

 the steam sealing fleet left the harbour of St. John's, Newfound- 

 land, under the most favourable auspices, the prognostications 

 as to their probable success, as well as that of the sailing vessels 

 which had preceded them, being cheering in the extreme. A 

 local paper, speaking of the departure of the fleet, says, " never 

 did the voyage begin under more auspicious circumstances." On 

 the 27th of March these sanguine hopes were rudely dispelled, 

 and the whole colony plunged into grief by the news of the most 

 terrible disaster ever recorded in the annals of the Seal fishery. 

 The s.s. * Greenland ' was reported sheltering in Bay de Verd, and 

 the next day she arrived at St. John's with the bodies of twenty- 

 five of her crew which had perished on the ice, and reported 

 twenty-three others as missing, whose bodies were never re- 

 covered ; many of the survivors being terribly frost-bitten. The 

 cause of this disaster will be briefly explained farther on, but, as 

 may be imagined, such a terrible commencement threw the 

 deepest gloom over what was in other respects a fairly successful 

 voyage. Nor was this the only fatality which had to be recorded, 

 for the ' Leopard ' also lost two men, and the * Mastiff' became a 

 total wreck, her crew, however, being happily rescued. 



By virtue of an enactment which came into force in the past 

 season, the steamers were allowed to commence killing on the 

 12th of March instead of on the 14th, as heretofore, and the 

 season is prolonged to the 1st of May instead of ending on the 

 20th of April. The sailing vessels also, under certain restric- 

 tions, are granted a bounty of 4 dols. per ton ; this, it is hoped, 

 may prove beneficial in inducing many vessels which would 

 otherwise remain idle at that time, to engage in the fishery, and 

 thus find employment for both men and ships, By some it is 



