Sealing

“ Had the catching of seals been harmful, or were there so many seals still in the sea that it didn't matter what line of hunting went on?"
"Of course, pelagic sealing had nearly killed off the entire species," said Colin, "but, somehow, fish seem different. Oh, yes, I know why. Seals only have one pup at a time and fishes have thousands of eggs."
"That's a very good reply," the professor [Pg 129] agreed, "but why was it that pelagic sealing was so bad? Was it done all the year round?"
Millions of these Hatched Yearly.
Brook Trout just hatching, showing fry with egg-sacs still attached. ”

“ Sealing is an industry which still claims considerable attention from the Scandinavians and Scotchmen who go to the coasts and waters about Spitzbergen,242 Jan Mayen, and Greenland, as well as to nearer resorts, in pursuit of several species yielding oil and valuable hides; and in the North Pacific the pursuit of the fur seal still occupies many small vessels, but seems likely to come soon to an end. Antarctic seals are practically extinct. ”

“ By “swyles,” of course, he means “seals.” A man’s a man when he has killed his seal. Seal-meat is an anti-scorbutic, and the sealers present the “paws,” or flippers, as great delicacies to their friends. A “big feed” is a “scoff.” Sealing brings men together in conviviality and comaraderie, and it is the great ambition of most of the youth of Newfoundland to “go to the ice.” Many are the stowaways aboard the sealing craft. If a man goes “half his hand” it means he gets half his catch for his labour. ”

“ Sealing is a sociable business, and a craft should never come alone into these high latitudes. Accidents will happen to the most prudent man living, as you see by what has just befallen me; for, to own the truth, we've had a narrow chance of it!"
The reader will remember that all which Daggett now said, was uttered by a man who saw his vessel lying on the ice, with a list that rendered it somewhat difficult to move about on her deck, and still in circumstances that would have caused half the navigators of this world to despair. ”

“ At the present day an Eastern, when sealing a letter, smears the seal, not the document, with the sealing-substance, and illiterate persons will sometimes use the object nearest at hand, such as their own finger, which they daub with ink, and press upon the paper therewith. In Babylonia the finger-nail was sometimes impressed into the clay as a seal ”

“ The sealing may be done with a blowpipe, by simply holding the ends in a flame, or by means of sealing-wax or some similar substance. The satisfactory charging of tubes demands some practice, but a little patience will enable any intelligent person to succeed. ”

“ A device is cut on the seal; before using it, the paper is moistened with a wet finger, and the ink is dabbed over the ring with another; the impression is then made, using the ball of the thumb for a pad.
Sealing-wax Varnish.--Black or red sealing-wax, dissolved in spirits of wine, makes a very effective stiff and waterproof varnish, especially for boxes of paper or cardboard. It might be useful in keeping some iron things from rust: it is the same material that is used to cover toy magnets. When made stiff it is an excellent cement for small articles. ”

“ Momentum.—A sudden flow of water from the fixture may, by the force of its momentum, empty all water in the trap and thus leave it unsealed. To prevent the unsealing of traps by momentum, they must be of a proper size, not less than the waste pipe of the fixture, the seal must be deep, and the trap in a perfectly straight position, as a slight inclination will favor its emptying. ”

“ Such implements are mentioned in most popular accounts of the Eskimo of the east, and Capt. Parry describes it from personal observation at Iglulik.354 I have been unable to find any mention of its use in western America, and have seen no specimens in the National Museum.
Fig. 255.—Seal indicators.
Sealing stools.—
When a native is watching a seal-hole he frequently has to stand for hours motionless on the ice. His feet would become exceedingly cold, in spite of the excellence of his foot covering, were it not for a little three-legged stool about 10 inches high upon which he stands. ”

“ The seal rose, like a cork, up to its fore fins as if it had suffered much torture from long retention of its breath, and, swifter than thought, R——'s gun flashed, and with a sharp report seemed to take a bucket of water from the Fiord, and fling it into the air. When the light gray smoke of the powder had rolled in a revolving cloud from the space intervening between us and the spot where the animal was observed, the water was white with froth, but no sign of the seal could be seen. ”

“ This little spike of rock was a foot or so above the water, even when the sea swelled up towards it—it being not yet high tide—and as it projected out like a bowsprit, there was nothing underneath it for the seal's hind feet to get a hold on, so that everything had to be done by a first leap up from the sea. This leap the seal made over and over again, shooting up sometimes almost like a salmon—his hind feet alone remaining in the water—and grasping the hard little triangle between his fore-arms, or flippers, so as to assist the impetus by hoisting himself upon it. ”

“ The blubber of the seal is either eaten, or converted into oil for the winter lamps; the skin, with the hair on, is made into frocks, breeches, boots, and stockings; and with the hair scraped off, and well oiled, the skin serves also for a covering to their houses and boats: numbers of them, heaped together with the skins of bears and deer, constitute their beds: lastly, after having carefully skinned a seal, the females sew the hide neatly up; then fill it with wind, like a bladder, and dry it in the sun ”

“ A seal comes to its rock there before the tide has sufficiently gone down to let it lie upon it. It plays about the rock, fawns upon it, caresses it, woos it, one might say, dives down and circumnavigates it, tries or pretends to try to lie upon it, even under the water, swims away and returns, and does the same thing several times; and as soon as the water is sufficiently shallow to allow of it, it reclines, sea-washed and gently heaving, till the receding tide leaves it high and dry. A pretty thing it is—very—to see a seal thus waiting for its chosen rock to appear. ”

“ It seems funny to be looking over a ledge, all day long, and to eat one's lunch whilst so doing. But I just look up to make my notes, and on looking down again, almost right under me, I see a seal hanging lazily in this quiet shore-pool of the sea; for to-day there is hardly a foam-line round the stacks and rocks. ”

“ But the western method of obtaining the impression has differed from the eastern method. With us, the notion of a seal is an impression in relief, obtained from an incised design, either on a soft material such as wax or clay, or on a harder material such as lead, gold or silver. By common usage the word “seal,” is employed as a term to describe both the implement for making the impression, and the impression itself; but properly it should be confined to the latter, the graven implement being technically called the matrix. ”

“ On the contrary, it passes through the trap when the seal has been lost—when the water has been accidentally withdrawn or forced out. The broad principle of the efficiency of water-seals is not affected by these apparent failures. The difficulty is in maintaining the seals—in keeping them intact and secure against all the various adverse influences that may affect them. And here the aid of sanitary science must be sought; for the plumber's art has been powerless to devise traps that will protect our houses from the foul air of the sewers. ”

“ Of course if they have a favourite rock which is covered at high tide, they are then compelled to do so, but in that case they can seek another one which is not so restricted, and lie there sleeping, if they will, "the washing of ten tides." Their bed-times are not governed by the ebb and flow of the sea.
The larger seal which I spoke of yesterday is called here, locally, a bottle-nosed seal, or at least some so designate it. He is here again to-day, rising at intervals and staring at the sky, in the other of these two-in-one-contained bays, which seems to be more particularly his own. ”

“ True solitude should imply no fleas.
During the time that this large bottle-nosed seal was away, a small common one—the same that lies on the rock in this sea-pool every day from before it is uncovered to the flowing in of the tide—came and disported himself—as usual I had said, but it was not quite the same. He first began to dive and reappear, at regular intervals, as does the great one, and I soon found that he was behaving like him in all things, even to the standing on end in the water, like a peg-top, with his nose straight up in the air. ”

“ The large ground seal (Phoca barbata) is skinned in a different manner. Its skin is very thick, thicker even than sole leather, and therefore extremely durable and suitable for all sorts of lines, particularly traces, lashings, and harpoon lines, and for soles, drinking 521 cups, and boat covers. This seal is very large, sometimes attaining a length of ten feet. The skin of the back and of the breast dries unequally, and therefore a piece covering the throat and breast is taken out before the rest is skinned, and the parts are dried separately. ”

“ The Innuits are, as I have frequently said, most persevering sealers, and will go, with their dogs, even in the very coldest of weather, and under most dangerous circumstances, to hunt for seal-holes. The sagacious dog, on snuffing the air and finding it charged with seal odour, follows it to the windward till he leads his master to the very spot where a seal has its hole. The man then proceeds prospecting with his spear through one to three feet depth of snow, until he finds the small opening in the ice leading to the main seal-hole. ”

“ The float is usually a walrus bladder inflated in the ordinary way, and wherever the seal may go, the float betrays its track, enabling the Esquimaux to follow it in his shuttle-shaped kayak, and pierce it again with a surer aim.
In winter, when the sea is quite covered with ice, you might fancy that the seal-fishery would be at an end, for the seal is essentially a marine animal; and although it can exist upon the ice or on dry land, it could not subsist there. Access to the water it must have, in order to procure its food, which consists of small fish and molluscs. ”

“ If it catches sight of a seal upon a drifting floe, it will slide quietly into the sea, swim with only the tip of its nose above the water, and, diving under the floe, reach the very spot which the hapless seal has regarded as an oasis of safety. ”

“ On warm, sunny days the seals lie close and sleep soundly, but they always have their sentries set. Kill the sentry, and many others are at your mercy; miss him, or merely wound him, and he gives the alarm instanter, and all the rest jump helter-skelter into the sea, according you a beautiful view of their tail-ends, which you don’t find very advantageous in the way of making a bag.
A good sealer, like a good skirmisher, takes advantage of every bit of cover, and many a death-blow is dealt from the shelter of a lump of loose ice. ”

“ At other times, however, a seal shot in the water will float like a buoy. It is not very clear why one seal should float and another sink. It is certainly not referable to the condition of the animal. Fat seals sink as readily as lean ones; and lean seals float as readily as fat ones. ”

“ The round, plump, expressive face of a seal, the beautiful, limpid eyes, the hand-like fore-paws, the sleek body, tapering towards the flattened hinder fins, which are directed backwards, and spread out in the form of a broad fin, like the tail of a fish, might well give the idea of an animal having the anterior part of its body human and the posterior half piscine.
In the habits of the seals, also, we may trace those of the supposed mermaid, and the more easily the better we are acquainted with them. All seals are fond of leaving the water frequently. ”

“ At length, with a mighty yawn and stretch, he turns full upon his vasty stomach, and immediately, by virtue of the different appearance which his fur has when wet or dry, becomes a much smaller seal that « 326 » has climbed up upon a buoy—the lower, wet part of him looks like that; the upper, alone, is himself. Then gradually he soaks all over, till he is, again, huge and indivisible, a great, naked, blue, greasy, oiled bladder,—yet firm still, as though he grew to the rock. ”

“ It is curious that the one seal that lies on its face is the only one out of the twelve that is turned towards the sea. The sea, however, in this case is only a narrow inlet between the rock on which it lies and the shore, the great expanse of it being entirely hidden by the rock itself, which rises perpendicularly, like a cliff, from the highest point of its upward slope. ”

“ One method of catching seals illustrates their ingenuity. Taking an air-tight seal-skin, they blow it up like a bladder, fasten to it a long line, and, concealing themselves behind the rocks, they throw their imitation seal among the live ones and draw it slowly to the shore. ”

“ S SEAL-COVE again to-day, and there, upon the same great slab, and at much the same time, five great seals are lying, whilst on other rocks there are six more. The tide is coming in, and one that is on a low rock goes gradually off with the wash of it. The others lie on, though now, at high noon, the tide, I think, must be in. Seals, therefore, do not go off their rocks at high tide, as a custom, unless the water leaves them no choice. ”