Morning journal and courier., 1882-05-27
Scaling.

From "Seals and sealing in the North Atlantic, ?
 by Ernest IngersolI, in St. Nicholas for June.I
 The seals of the North Atlantic are not hunted for their fur, as are their Alaskan cousins, but chiefly for their oil, and secon, darily for their skins It is an industry which proitably employs hundreds of ships and thousands of seamen, and it receives the name of scaling"
 You may know that near the end of winter enormous herds, chiefly of the harp seals, come down and congregate upon the floating fields of ice eastward of Newfoundland, where the young are born in March. These are the place and season of the largest fish, cry, but the locality is never fixed nor cer- tain; the fields, approached simultaneously by sailing fleets and steamers from New foundland, Nova Scotia, Scotland, England, France. Germany and Norway, must be sought for every year as though for the first time. This is in the icy, tempestuous North Atlantic, at the most stormy period of the year. Dreadful gales may drive the ships anywhere but where they seek to go. bergs may be hurled against them, the ice may jam them between it's ponderous edges and crush the doubly braced hulls into splinters, or cleanly- cut away parts of the bottom, and leave the vessels to sink and the men to save themselves as best they may upon broken and drifting ice. Often field of thin "bay ice" will lie right in the path. Then the ship dashes into it as far as it's power can force it. When it sticks the crew leap overheard, chop and break the field into cakes which are showed under the foe or hauled out on top or, if it Is too thick to be broken, saws are brought out, and canal is slowly made for the ships progress. This is time of great desire for haste, and you may we'll believe that every man works with all his might
 We'll, when all this toll and danger are past, sometimes greatly prolonged, and in the oE ha storms,-and the ship has the good luck to sight herd, then begins for ths crew of hardy sailors season of about the most ard uons labor that one can imagine.
 If the weather permit, the vessel is run into the ice, and moored there if not, it sails back and forth in open spaces, managed by the captain and one or two others, while the remainder of the crew, sometimes sixty or seventy, or even more in number, get into boats and row swiftly to the Hoe. The young seals lie scattered about here and there, bask ing in the sun or sheltered under the lee of hummock, and they lie so thickly that half a dozen will often be seen in space twen- ty yards square. They cannot get away, or at most can only founder about, and their plaintive bleatings and white coats might almost be those of lambs The old seals are frightened away by the approach of the sailors, and never show fight, and the youngsters are easily killed so the men do not take guns, but only clubs, with which they strike the poor little fellows a single blow on the head, usually killing them at once.
 Having struck down all they can see with in short distance, the small squad of men who work together then quickly skin, or (as they call it) 'sculp" them, with broad clasp-knife, cutting clear through the thick layer of fat which lies underneath the hide, and so leaving a surprisingly small carcass behind Bundles are then made of from three to seven "pelts,' and each man drags bundle toward the boat. This is sometimes miles distant, the ice is rough and broken, he cakes, and ctten he falls into the freezing snow. It is limbcracking and e-rIsking work, and, to accomplish it successfully, man must school his muscles to endur ance, hls nerves to peril, and his heart to bitter cruelty but every pelt is worth dollar
 By night, after 'seal meadow" has been attacked the decks of the vessel are hidden under a deep layer of fat, slippery pelts. After these have lain long enough to get cool, they are slowed away in the hold in pairs, each pair having the hair outward The hold is divided by stout partitions into eompart- ments, or pounds" in order to prevent the cargo from moving about and so rubbing the fat into oil, which would speedily fill every part of the hold and the cabins, spelling all the provisions. vessel once had to be abandoned from this accident, because it had not been pounded" The European ships, however, generally separate the fat at once and stow it in casks.