Waste : a lecture delivered at the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science, Literature and the Arts, on Tuesday, February the 10th, 1863 / by John Addington Synonds.

  • John Addington Symonds
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Waste : a lecture delivered at the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science, Literature and the Arts, on Tuesday, February the 10th, 1863 / by John Addington Synonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    carrying seal skins from thence to China, where they obtained most exorbitant prices. One million two hundred thousand sicins have been taken from that island alone since that period; and nearly an equal number from the Island of Desolation ! The number of the fur seals killed in the South Shetland Isles (s. lat. 63°,) in 1821 and 1822, amounted to three hundred and twenty thousand. This valuable animal is now almost extinct in all these islands. From the most authentic statements it appears certain that the fur trade must henceforward decline, since the advanced state of Geographical Science shows that no new countries remain to be explored. In North America the animals are slowly decreas- ing, from the persevering efforts and the indis- criminate slaughter practised by the hunters, and by the appropriation to the use of man of those forests and rivers which have once afforded them food and protection.”* Bat all instances of destruction of vegetable and animal life on the present surface of the earth are as nothing, compared with the evidences pre- sented in older strata. It would be incredi- * Dr. Mantell’s “ Wonders of Geology,” vol. i., p. 104.
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