Littell's Living Age Volume 148 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ...with clubs. As soon as the ice is reached, the men scatter themselves about the field, running over the rough surface, jumping from block to block of loose ice, tumbling into holes and scrambling out again, wild with excitement in their search for seals. Each man acts independently, doing the best he can for himself. When he has killed a seal he stops but a minute to whip off the skin with the blubber attached, and fasten a cord to it, and then off again after another seal, till he has got as many as he can drag, when he returns, towing his load behind him, to the ship. The men work with a will, giving themselves scarcely time to eat or rest, for they receive a share of the profits according to the number of seals that each man brings in, and if the season is successful, an active and daring man will make a large sum of money. The seals are valuable only for the oil which is tried out of their fat, and which is employed for various lubricating purposes, and for their skins, which are tanned and used principally, I believe, for shoe leather. They do not produce the pelt which, when plucked and dyed, is worked up into those lovely sealskin jackets that are as destructive to the purse as they are delightful to the eye. The number of seals brought in annually is very great, as many as five hundred thousand having been killed in a single season, andthe business employs nearly ten thousand men. What becomes of the multitude of surviving seals is a problem I have never heard satisfactorily solved. The ice, on which they come down in swarms every year from the north, melts during the summer months soon after coming in contact with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. What then becomes of the seals? Do they find their way back through thousands of...