Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-06-08
Sealing.

From ~seals end Sealing in the North Atlantic nv
Ernest ingersoll, in ST Nicholas for june.
The seals of the North Atlantic are
not hunted for their fur, as are their
Alaska cousins. but chiefly for their
OIL, and secoudarily for their skins. It
IS an industry which profitably employs
hundreds of ships and thousands of
seamen, and it receives the name of
sealing"
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 fishery,
but the locality is never fixed nor GER
tain; the fields, approached simulta-
neously by sailing fleets and steamers
from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Scot.
land, 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 60,
bergs may be hurled against them, the
ice may jam them between its ponder
GUS edges and crush the doubly braced
hulls into splinters, or Clearly 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 a field
OF thin ''bay-ice" will lie right in the
path. Then the ship dashes into it as
far as its 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 brok-
en-, saws are brought out, and canal
is slowly made for the ships progress.
This is time Of great desire for haste,
and you may well believe that every
man works with all his might.
Well, when all this toll and danger
are passed, greatly pro-
longed. and in the midst of a frCzen
sea and the most violent stoIms,-and
the ship has the good lack to sight a
herd, then begins for the crew of hardy
sailors season of about the most ard
uous 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, SON etimes sixty or seven
| ty, or even more in number, set into
boats and row swiftly to the foe. The
young seals lie scattered about here
and there, basking in the sun or
sheltered under the lee of hummock,
and they lie so thickly that half a
dozen will often be seen in a space
twenty yards square. They can not
get away, or at most IN 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 young
sters are easily killed; so the men do
not take guns, but only clubs, with
which they strike the poor little fell
lows single blow on the head, usually
killing them at once.
Having struck down all they see
within 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 surprisingly small carcass be-
hind. 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
trough and bloken, he must leap cracks,
trust himself to isolated cakes, and
often he falls into the freezing water,
or loses his way in sudden squall of
snow. 1t is Undertaking and life
risking work, and, to accomplish it
successfully, man must school his
muscles to endurance, his nerves to
peril, and his heart to bitter cruelty
but every pelt is worth dollarl
By, night, after "seal-meadow" has
been attacked, the decks of the vessel
are hidden under 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
compartm nts,or pounds" in order to
prevent the cargo from moving about
and so rubbing the fat into Oil, which
would speedily Gil every part of the
hold and the cabins, spelling all the
provisions. A vessel once had to be
abandoned from this accident, because
it had not been pounded" The
| Enrnnaan shina hnWauar rronorallu