Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/129

Rh ice was most unfavourable, it being compacted into vast sheets of great thickness, which the vessels were quite unable to penetrate except by occasional openings or cracks, in one of which the 'Mastiff' met with her disaster. An attempt was made by her, on the 14th of March, to reach the main body of the Seals about seventy-two miles N.N.E. of the Funks by passing up one of these lanes of open water, when a sudden change of wind caused the floes to close in upon her, and in less than two hours she sank, crushed by the ice, with 7000 Seals on board. Happily her crew were saved by other vessels in her vicinity.

The story of the 'Greenland' is a sad one. On the 21st of March she had four watches on the ice, consisting of 189 men (out of a crew of 207), recovering panned Seals, of which there were about 20,000; later on she took on board the first watch consisting of thirty-five men, and on proceeding to recall the others the steamer got jammed in sight of the men, who were unable to reach her owing to open water between them and the vessel; at 4.30 the storm broke with such fury that the ship barely escaped foundering. At five o'clock the next day the gale somewhat abated, and they succeeded in rescuing one hundred men, all of whom were frost-bitten, and some badly injured by falls on the ice. The wind then again increased to such a degree that it was impossible to get the boats out. On the 23rd six more men were picked up alive, and sixteen dead. Only one other dead man was subsequently recovered, and on the 26th the search was abandoned and the 'Greenland' bore up for home, seriously damaged, and with twenty-five of her crew dead on board, twenty-three others being missing. The two men lost from the 'Leopard' probably perished from exhaustion, or walked into the water through ice-blindness; a third man was fifty-nine hours on the ice, and in a deplorable condition when rescued. Such a chapter of accidents has never previously been known in the Seal fishery, and the circumstances under which the misfortunes occurred bring forcibly to mind the dangers and hardships owing to sudden atmospheric changes, as well as the personal toil and risk which are experienced in the prosecution of this arduous and perilous occupation.

The young Harp Seals were struck by most of the vessels on the 13th of March, which, falling on Sunday, killing did not begin