684 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY. 



judgment are necessary in directing the movements of the ship, 

 the only indications at times being doubtful ice-blinks and unde- 

 cided water-skies. 



The ice-blink is frequently a very weak indication in summer, 

 appearing as a narrow belt of a little lighter and yellowish sky 

 just above the horizon. So faint is its appearance at times that it 

 would not be recognized except by comparison with known water- 

 sky. The latter is dark and gloomy, much resembling that pre- 

 ceding a thunder-storm. 



In the pack itself it is generally calm, a slight breeze being 

 almost certain evidence of the close proximity of considerable 

 open water. 



The sealers of Dundee and St. John, Newfoundland, rendezvous 

 at the latter port and start almost in the same half -hour about 

 midnight of some day in March. The date is fixed by law, in order 

 to protect the seals during their bearing period. They have a less 

 venturesome voyage than the whalers, though starting earlier, 

 their hope being to meet the first great ice-floes in the open sea 

 where they are subjected to very little pressure, though the fogs 

 and dark nights make it difficult to avoid collision with one of the 

 numerous icebergs. 



The sealers depend in a great measure on luck to strike the 

 floes on which the hair-seal is found in great numbers ; a few of 

 the oldest captains are supposed to possess a prescience or peculiar 

 judgment, though it is by no means certain that the seals will be 

 met with in the same part of the open sea in two consecutive sea- 

 sons. In fact, out of ten or twelve sealers leaving in the same 

 hour every year, it frequently happens that one or two of the 

 luckiest have made two successful trips with full cargoes before 

 some of the others have reported more or less bad luck from their 

 first ; the Proteus once brought in one hundred thousand skins 

 from her first trip of the season alone. 



On sighting the ice the steamers run along the great floes and 

 through the leads until they find a floe on which a colony of seals 

 have congregated; a dock is rammed into the ice at once; ice 

 anchors are laid out ahead ; the very large crew carried is landed 

 by the Jacob's ladders dangling from the head-booms. Sometimes 

 the crew is split up into several parties to work on different floes ; 

 in all cases the seals are surrounded as rapidly as possible and 

 driven toward a common center. Here they crawl up on each 

 other, barking and moaning, until they form a great heap ten feet 

 or more in height, writhing and fighting, while the ice in every 

 direction is dotted with the white puppy-seals so young as to be 

 unable to move. The men at work on the ice esteem very highly 

 the frozen hearts of these young seals, claiming that they are not 

 only palatable, but enable them to better stand cold and fatigue. 



