THE BALANCE-SHEET 
265 
one with the wander-lust upon him starts on an 
expedition into more or less unexplored or unknown 
parts of the world in search of anything that may 
turn up. It may be trade, or seals, or sea-otters, 
or fish, or gold, or guano, that he discovers ; or, as 
more often happens, something of no value at all, 
and he has only his pains for his reward. Once in 
a while one of these wanderers does find something 
of value, and as soon as it becomes known, in steps 
authority and claims what he has found. Then 
some trust or company or individual with a 
66 pull 55 obtains the right (?) to exploit it, the 
original discoverer too often being left out in the 
cold. 
During the period over which my narrative ex¬ 
tends, about fifty foreign vessels took part at different 
times in hunting the sea-otter in the North Pacific 
in the vicinity of the Kuril Islands. The largest 
number in any one year was fifteen, three of which, 
however, were lost before they reached the hunting- 
grounds. A few of the vessels hunted a number of 
seasons ; others, three or four years only ; others, 
again, only one or two ; whilst some came to grief 
before they completed one season, the average for 
them all being about three seasons. The following 
is a list, nearly if not quite complete, of these 
vessels, with their fate : 
Cygnet 
Swallow 
Roscoe 
Caroline I. 
Otsego 
Sanborn 
White Falcon .. 
Lost with all hands in North Pacific. 
Abandoned and broken up on east coast of Yezo. 
Unknown. 
Unknown. 
Lost with all hands on north-east end of 
Y etorup. 
Lost with all hands on hunting voyage to 
Cape Horn. 
Lost on Yetorup. 
