been the indiscriminate slaughter of old and young that they are now very scarce in their former accessible haunts, and must be sought amid the antarctic ice. This species is half as large as the Greenland whale, and very much larger than the largest elephant.-The last genus which will be mentioned is otaria (Péron), which includes the platyrhynchus and arctocephalus of F. Cuvier, the sea lions and sea bears respectively. The incisors are f, the 4 upper middle ones with broad crown divided by a transverse groove, the outer 2 conical; molars, sometimes with one less above; the fore feet are placed further back than in the other seals, and are therefore better swimming organs, giving an appearance of a longer neck; the hind feet have the membrane prolonged beyond the nails into long straps or ribbons; the fore feet are nailless, and the lower surface of all the limbs is without hair; there are also small external ears, from which these seals are called otaries. The name of sea lion has been given to a number of large seals of both hemispheres, either from their savage appearance, roaring voice, powerful canines, or maned neck. The northern or Steller's sea lion (0. [platyrhynchus] Stelleri, Less.) is about 15 feet long, with a weight of about 1,600 lbs.; the males have stiff curled hair on the neck, a thick hide, coarse hair of a tawny reddish color, and a mane of erect hair; the head is large, and the nose long and truncated, the eyebrows bushy, and the ears distinct. They are found on the E. shores of Kamtchatka, about the Koorile islands, and the N. W. coast of America, on rugged coasts and desert rocks in the ocean; savage as is their aspect, they flee at the approach of man, and do not resist unless reduced to extremity; they are polygamous; their food consists of fish, the smaller seals, sea otters, and marine birds and animals. The southern sea lion (0. jubata, Desm.) is of about the same size and general appearance as the last, with similar habits, is heavy and clumsy in its gait, and fears man; it is found in the south seas, sometimes coming to the Patagonian coasts; it is rarely hunted except by savages, though the oil is excellent. The name of sea bear has been applied to many smaller seals of both hemispheres, with a less ferocious aspect but fiercer disposition than the sea lions; they form the genus arctocephalus (F. Cuv.). The northern ursine seal or sea bear of Steller (0. [4.] ursina, Cuv.) is about the size of a large bear, between 7 and 8 feet in length; the forehead is much arched, the lips tumid, and the ears nearly 2 inches high; close to the skin is a soft wool of a reddish color, over which is a dark coarse hair; the females and young are ashy. It is found in great numbers in the N. Pacific, on the N. W. coast of America, and Kamtchatka; it is very fat in spring before the young are born; it is polygamous, the males tender to the young but tyrannical to the females; if wounded, it will attack a boat, and is very tenacious of life; this species is the terror of the smaller seals and sea otters, and

is itself afraid of the sea lion; the skin is much prized by the Chinese. The southern sea bear or the fur seal of commerce (0. Forsteri, Less.) is smaller than the last, but larger than the common seal, the males being about 7 feet long, and the females considerably smaller; the hair is of different colors, black, brownish, gray, and variously spotted with grayish and yellowish, and the under fur is short and fine. It was formerly very abundant about the islands of the southern ocean, especially the Falkland, but has been so hunted that it is now almost extirpated. It yields the soft yellowish fur once in great demand for caps and coat linings; the long hair is removed by heating the skin and then carding it with a large wooden knife, leaving the fine under fur uncovered; a skin is worth $2 or $3 in China, and considerably more in Great Britain and the United States.-A few fossil remains belonging to species of seals, nearly allied to the common and monk seals, have been found in the upper tertiary formations of Europe and North America.

SEAL (Lat. sigillum), a piece of metal, stone, or other hard substance on which is engraved some image or device, and sometimes a legend or inscription. It is used for making impressions on wax or the like material affixed to legal instruments so as to furnish evidence of their authenticity. The word seal sometimes means only the implement employed, but both in legal and in common language it is applied also to the thing impressed. The use of seals may be traced to the remotest antiquity. The Bible contains frequent allusions to them, and they abound among Assyrian and Babylonian remains. Kitto says that seals were anciently used in the East, not for impressing devices upon wax or similar substance, but for stamping the name of the owner. From the East the use of seals passed to Greece and thence to Rome; and it has been common in all the European states from the earliest historical periods. The study of diplomatics has brought to light a variety of interesting facts concerning the form, material, and inscriptions of seals attached to public documents, the authenticity or proximate date of which may often be determined by the seal. Among both the Greeks and the Romans the seal was usually set in a ring, whence annulus came to be a Latin name for a seal. The word bulla has always been used in Europe to designate specifically an impression in metal, and thus came to be the distinctive appellation of a class of instruments sealed in that way. Such, for example, are the edicts and briefs of the Roman pontiffs (see BULL, PAPAL), and some constitutions of the German emperors.The shapes of seals are various. The circular form is common to all periods. The ogive, the spade form of the escutcheon in heraldry, appeared with the pointed style in architecture, and was in the course of time exclusively appropriated by abbeys, chapters, bishops, and other ecclesiastical bodies and persons. The oval form was particularly frequent in France

during the reigns of the Merovingian and Carlovingian kings. The size varied at different periods, and in general the smaller and thicker the seal, the older it is. Those of the Merovingian kings are hardly more than an inch in diameter, while that of Francis I. of France had a breadth of 4 inches. The Egyptian priests used in sealing a sort of clay; and so it would seem did other ancient nations of the East. The Roman creta and maltha were probably not chalk or clay alone; possibly wax was mixed with these substances. The Byzantine emperors sealed in the form of bulla with lead, and sometimes with silver and gold. Silver bullæ are much rarer than those of gold. The wax most anciently employed was white. When, about the 9th or 10th century, wax was made of various colors, only emperors and kings might seal in red. In the 12th century it was customary in France to seal with green wax letters addressed to persons of high eminence. This color was introduced into Germany in the 14th century, and was appropriated by religious houses and cities. Blue seals are very rare, and Charles V. of Germany is said to be the only European monarch who used this color. The patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople, and the grand masters of the order of Malta and of the Teutonic order in Germany, sealed in black. Private persons usually used yellow wax, and this color is frequent in public documents of about the 12th century.-The devices upon seals throw not a little light upon the manners and usages of different ages, and some of them have positive historical value. The seals of the Romans were engraved with the portraits of their ancestors or friends, with mythological subjects, or with symbolical allusions to the real or mythical history of their families. Perhaps the earliest authentic instance of a seal bearing armorial devices is that of Arnulphus, count of Flanders (941). Such seals were not common until the 13th century. The early seals of religious communities and of cities were inscribed with the image of their patron saint or of some sacred relic, or with the figures of ecclesiastical dignitaries or magistrates. The name of the owner in seals attached to public documents usually forms part of the inscription. The ancient intaglios were frequently used for seals in the times of the early French kings. They were used chiefly for counter-seals, and by the addition of a pious text or legend it was attempted to give a sacred character to their profane subjects. On the counter-seal of the church of Noyon the salutation, Are Maria, gratia plena, is engraved about a figure of Minerva, who wears a helmet graced with the head of Socrates.-The most ancient mode of sealing was probably that of applying the wax directly to the parchment. When the instrument was written upon two or more leaves, the wax was made to reach them all by impressing it upon an incision made in the parchment in the form of a cross. The seal was sometimes also made upon the ends of

thongs or strips of parchment run through the several sheets. Lead, silver, or gold bila were almost of necessity appended by a cord or strip. In the 12th century it seems that in France at least pendent seals had displaced the other sort. They are still used generally for letters patent, treaties, and other important public documents. During the 12th century too, though the practice was not well estab lished until the 13th, arose the contrivance of counter-seals, that is to say, the use of a differ ent impression upon the reverse of the proper seal. They are said to have been first ap plied to the pendent seals. They were in these cases made of the same size with the chief seals, and the mottoes interrupted on these were continued on the counter-seais. -With regard to the mode of using seals, we find that, although in some periods they Lare taken the place of signatures, yet very often seal and signature have been employed together. In Rome, the prætorian law had recognized the validity of testaments that were only sealed by the witnesses; yet an imperial constitution afterward required the adscription of their names also. In the constitutions of the Merovingian and Carlovingian kings, the seal ordinary supports the monogram or signature of the sovereign, but sometimes it stands alone. From the 8th to the 10th century the use of seals in France was confined almost entirely to the kings. Most instruments of this period are attested, so far as the witnesses at least are concerned, only by the mention of their names. They neither sign nor seal, nor even make with their own hands the crosses prefixed to their names. About the 12th or 13th century the use of seals among all classes became general, and continued so until the revival of learning made autographs possible and seals of less use. In England charters and grants of the Ang Saxon and Anglo-Danish reigns were authenticated by the signature of the grantor preceded by the figure of a cross. The execution was attested by the subscription of the names of the witnesses, each name being preceded by a cross. Seals were certainly not often used a England until late in the 11th century, and then by no means commonly. William the Coqueror was not, as is often said, the king who first introduced seals into England. There are extant unquestioned seals of Edward the Confessor, and he certainly first adopted a grest seal for England; and on solemn occasions even the predecessors of Edward had used at least private seals. The general use of seals in England for authenticating charters and other instruments was not fairly established till rear the middle of the 13th century. In Scotland, a statute of the time of Robert III. (1390–1408) declared that every baron or tenant in cape of the king must have a peculiar seal for his sovereign's service; and a statute apparently in aid of this one, passed in the next reign (James I.), enacts that every freeholder shall appear at the lord's court with his seals, or if he cannot

appear in person, he shall send them by his attorney; and it seems to have been customary for gentlemen at this time to deposit copies of their seals in the office of the court of their county, the seal then and until 1540 sufficing without signature to authenticate an instrument. In the year just mentioned a statute of James V. declared that, inasmuch as seals might be lost or counterfeited, all documents must henceforth be not only sealed but subscribed.-From the universal use of seals in England it came to be English law that no charter, grant, or other instrument of conveyance, was factum, that is, done, or in other phrase a deed, until it was sealed; and such was the virtue of a seal, that down to the time of Charles II. it alone sufficed to make a writing valid and binding. The statute 29 Charles II., the so called statute of frauds, enacted that certain writings should for the future be signed; but it is probably the better opinion that, even since the statute, a deed duly sealed is good without the subscription of a name.-The old common law definition of a seal is that given by Lord Coke: Sigillum est cera impressa "A seal is an impression in wax;" but it has long been held that a wafer or other tenacious substance, on which an impression is or may be made, is a good seal. In many, perhaps indeed most of the United States, neither wax, wafer, nor any other substance is required. In most of the southern and western states, a scroll or ring made with the pen in imitation of, or as marking the place of, the seal is sufficient. In New Jersey this applies only to obligations for the payment of money. In Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, and Arkansas, the scroll must be expressly recognized as the seal in the body of the instrument. One piece of wax suffices for several signers if stamped with their separate impressions; or several signers may adopt one seal; and an adoption of this sort is inferred when the deed recites the sealing" with our seals," and those who did not in fact seal do yet sign and deliver the deed. -The significance of the seal in law at present is, that it imports a deliberate and considered act on the part of him who affixes it. That the law should hold that a grantor's writing his name by the side of a bit of colored paper, stuck to the deed by the draughtsman, or flourishing a scroll after his name, imports, because of the seal or flourish, and not at all because of the signature, the deliberation or consideration of the grantor, may seem absurd. But with or without reason the rule has established itself firmly in the law, that an instrument thus executed with a seal implies a consideration, or in other words that full assent which is essential to the validity of every contract, and which can be inferred only from a seal, or from something of value passing between the parties as the cause of the contract. SEAL ENGRAVING. See GEM, vol. viii. p. 127.

SEAL FISHERY. See SEAL.

SEALING WAX, a composition of shell lac and other substances used to receive the impression of seals. Beckmann notices the use of sealing wax upon a letter received in Germany from London in 1554, and upon others a few years later. The Portuguese had it in common use at this period, and are supposed to have introduced it from India. In Venice and Spain it was also well known at this time, and in other parts of Europe it was introduced under the name of Spanish wax. As it contains no wax, this name must have been transferred to it from the material previously in use for the same purpose. Numerous receipts are given for its preparation, some of which, as for red and black sealing wax, are cited in LAC, vol. x. p. 230. Sealing wax is made of much better quality from lac of the first fusion than from that purchased in the shops. That prepared in India should therefore be the best. For brightcolored sealing wax the palest shell lac is to be selected. When the shell lac is melted, the proper proportion of Venice turpentine added, and the coloring matter has been briskly stirred in, the mass may be rolled upon a warm marble slab with a smooth wooden block to form the round sticks. Oval sticks are cast in moulds. The addition of 1 per cent. of balsam of Peru is customary to communicate an agreeable odor to the wax when it is used. Beside the mixtures already referred to, the following are recommended: 1. For red: 6 parts shell lac, 4 Venice turpentine, rosin, 14 cinnabar; or 4 parts bleached lac, 1 Venice turpentine, 3 Chinese vermilion. 2. For yellow: 4 parts lac, 2 Venice turpentine, 1 rosin, king's yellow. 3. For green: the same, except king's yellow and mineral blue . 4. For gold: 8 oz. lac, 4 oz. Venice turpentine, oz. bronze, oz. magnesia with oil of turpentine, and 14 sheets of gold leaf. Sticks of inferior wax of cheap materials are sometimes made to appear like the best by rolling them when soft in the best powdered wax and then melting this in. The finest red wax melts at 140°, and the best impressions are obtained by softening it by the flame of a candle, but not igniting it. Seal engravers obtain their fine proof impressions in the following manner: The seal is prepared by warming it to as high a temperature as the hand can bear, brushing over the face of it a thin layer of clean tallow, and with a camel's hair brush coating this with vermilion. Some wax is detached from the stick, softened near a candle, and being placed upon a piece of stout paper is gently warmed till it is soft enough to be stirred and worked up into a conical heap. The seal, at about the temperature of the wax, is then quickly stamped upon it with a firm straight blow and moderate pressure.

SEALSFIELD, CHARLES, a German author. He received a university education, emigrated to the United States, of which he became a citizen, and revisited his native land in 1826, where he published a book in German on his adopted country. Thence he went to England,

returned to America in 1827, and published in Philadelphia his first romance, "Tokeah, or the White Rose" (1828). During 1829-'30 he was one of the editors of the New York Courrier des États Unis, went to Paris in 1830 as correspondent of the New York "Courier and Enquirer," and in 1832 went to Switzerland. There he published a translation and revision of "Tokeah," entitled Der Legitime und der Republikaner (3 vols., Zürich, 1833), the favorable reception of which prompted him to write a series of works on American life. These appeared in succession under the title of Transatlantische Reiseskizzen (2 vols., 1833); Der Virey und die Aristokraten (2 vols., 1834); Lebensbilder aus beiden Hemisphären (6 vols., 1835-'7); Sturm-, Land- und Seebilder (1838'9); Kajütenbuch, oder nationale Charakteristiken (2 vols., 1840); and Süden und Norden (3 vols., Stuttgart, 1842-23). They were introduced to English readers by translations in "Blackwood's Magazine," when great curiosity was excited as to their source. Since then most of these works have been translated and republished in New York. Sealsfield resides alternately in Switzerland and the United States.

SEAMAN, a sailor. The legislature and the courts, particularly the courts of admiralty, regard seamen as peculiarly in need of and entitled to special protection. The statute provisions in their behalf in the United States are carried further in some respects than those of any other nation. Seamen may be hired in four ways. 1. They may be employed for a certain voyage and receive a certain proportion of the freight earned. This contract is probably rarely made in this country, except for small coasting vessels. 2. They may be hired for a certain voyage or by the run, and paid a round sum at the close, and this is not very unusual. 3. They may be hired on shares, which is a practice nearly if not quite confined to whaling and fishing vessels. 4. But much the most common usage is to hire them for a definite voyage or voyages, or for a definite period on monthly wages. Under penalty of a considerable forfeiture, the United States laws require that every master of a vessel bound from a port in the United States to any foreign port, or of any ship or vessel of the burden of 50 tons or upward, bound from one state to any other than an adjoining state, shall have shipping articles, which must be signed by every seaman on board. They must describe accurately the voyage and the terms upon which the seaman ships. Wherever there is doubt as to the meaning of the obligation, the sailor, rather than the ship owner, has the benefit of the doubt. The shipping articles ought therefore to declare explicitly the ports of the beginning and end of the voyage, and in all other respects ought to be clear and fair. To all clauses or stipulations which tend to lessen the usual rights of the seaman, it must appear that he gave intelligent and deliberate assent. All interlineations, alterations, or era

sures are presumed to be fraudulent unless st isfactorily explained. Accidental omission: 2 the articles may be supplied by parol; anda seaman may also by parol show that the ver age or time represented to him was not which appears in the papers, or that the a cles have been altered since they were sub scribed. In the United States the shipp articles for a fishing voyage are required to e indorsed or countersigned by the owners; b in an action for wages the seaman is not restricted to those who sign, but may show unde who were the actual owners.-The ow is bound to provide a seaworthy ship, and r statutes furnish the means of lawfully astertaining her condition on the complaint of he of the mates and a majority of the crew, by a regular survey at home or abroad. If seamet, after shipping, refuse to proceed on the voyage and are arrested for the mutiny, the condit of the vessel, if that be the excuse, is inquired into by the court; and if she be found unsesworthy, their punishment is reduced and miti gated accordingly. So, unseaworthiness is a sufficient defence to the charge of endeavoring to commit a revolt by compelling the master to return to port.-Provisions of due quality and quantity are to be furnished by the owner, under the general principles of law as applied from the earliest times to this particular contract. The quantity for each man on board is however here prescribed by statute, under peralty of a day's wages to every seaman for the days on which he is on short allowance. But these wages are not to be paid if the necessity of short allowance arose from a peril of the sea, or any accident of the voyage, or the de livery of a part of the provisions to another vessel in distress. Nor, as it is clear that the master must have a discretion in the expendi ture of the provisions, is putting the crew on an allowance necessarily the same thing as putting them on short allowance. A deficiency in one kind of provisions is not compensated by an abundance of another.-By the general law merchant there is an obligation upon every ship owner or master to provide for a seaman who becomes sick, wounded, or maimed in the discharge of his duty, whether at home or abroad, at sea or on land, if it be not by his own fault, suitable care, medicine, and medical treatment, including nursing, diet, and lodging. Sickness is provided for by express statutes, which go so far as to require that every ship of the burden of 150 tons or more, navigated by 10 or more persons in the whole, and bound on a voyage without the limits of the United States, should have a proper medicine chest on board. Whenever other appliances are required, or whenever surgical skill, or attendance, or nursing, other and better than that which the ship can afford, becomes necessary, the expense will be charged on the owners under the general maritime law. By other statutes the master may deduct 20 cents & month from every seaman's wages to make up

a fund for the support of marine hospitals, in which every sailor may have medical treatment. -Disobedience or misconduct of a sailor is of necessity punishable with great severity, because without good discipline the ship would always be in great peril, and no voyage could be successfully conducted. Formerly there was no specific limit to the right of punishment. It might be administered by the master in any form and in any measure, he always being responsible for any excess or cruelty, both criminally and in damages to the seaman. Now, however, by the statute of 1850, flogging is abolished and prohibited by law. This has been declared by very high authority to include the use of the cat and every similar form of punishment, but not necessarily to include all corporal punishment, such as a blow with the hand, or a stick or rope. The statute contemplates deliberate flogging, and not that sudden violence, like blows, which may be inflicted in an emergency, to compel immediate obedience, Generally the only punishments which can now be resorted to, to secure good conduct, are forfeiture of wages, irons, imprisonment, hard labor, and such other means as may be invented in the place of flogging. The penalty of forfeiture of wages may not be imposed for one trivial act of irregularity, nor for a single or occasional act of intemperance; the offence must be habitual to warrant the infliction of the penalty. The master or a seaman may forfeit all his wages for smuggling; or the damage actually sustained by the owners of the vessel from this offence may be charged upon the wages of the offender, but only those wages earned before the act of misconduct are forfeitable.-Desertion is distinguished from absence without leave by the intention not to return. Thus, it is not desertion for the seaman to leave the ship, against orders, for the purpose of entering complaints for ill treatment before the consul; nor is it desertion when the vessel is left for a good cause, as a change of the voyage without consent, cruelty, insufficient provisions, or unseaworthiness of the ship. The seaman must be received, if he offer to return in a proper way and in a reasonable time, before any other person is engaged to take the place. If he returns after desertion and is received by the master, or by the owner, this is a condonation of his offence and a waiver of the forfeiture, and it has this effect even if there be a clause to the contrary in the shipping articles. If the sailor deserts before the voyage begins, by not rendering himself on board, he forfeits his advance wages and an equal sum in addition, or he may be apprehended under the warrant of a justice and be compelled to go on board. If he deserts on the voyage, he forfeits all his wages and all his property on board the ship. By act of 1856, chap. 127, in case of desertion in a foreign country, the port and the date thereof must be noted by the master on the list of the crew, and be officially authenticated before a consul or notary public at the first port visited after

such desertion. The wages of the seaman and his interest in the cargo, if any, are forfeited to the United States, subject to the deduction by the ship owners of any expenses they may have necessarily incurred in consequence of such desertion.-The right of the sailor to be brought back to his home is very jealously guarded by our laws. Every ship must be provided with the shipping articles and a shipping list verified under the oath of the master; this he is required to present to the consul or commercial agent of the United States at every port which he visits, when so requested, and is under bond to deliver to the boarding officer who comes on board his ship at the first home port which he reaches, and to produce the persons named therein, that it may be ascertained that he has his whole crew on board. If it appears that any of them are missing, he must account for their absence. If he discharges any of them abroad, with his or their own consent, he must pay to the American consul of the port or the commercial agent, over and above the wages then due, 3 months' wages, of which two thirds are paid to the seaman, and one third retained by the consul and remitted to the treasury of the United States, to form a fund for the maintenance of American seamen abroad and for bringing them home. If repairs to the ship become necessary, or if the ship be captured, the seamen may hold on for a reasonable time awaiting the prosecution of the voyage; and if discharged before this time has elapsed, they may claim their extra wages. The discharge of a seaman for good cause, like disobedience, misconduct, or disability by his own fault of extreme degree, may be authorized by our consuls or commercial agents in foreign ports. If the ship be unseaworthy, the shipping articles be violated by the master, or the sailor be subjected to cruel treatment, he may be discharged by a consul and recover his 3 months' pay. If the master discharges the seaman, against his consent and without good cause, in a foreign port, he is liable to a fine of $500 or 6 months' imprisonment, and the seaman may recover full indemnity for all loss or expense incurred by such discharge.-It is an ancient maxim of the maritime law that freight is the mother of wages, so that where no freight is earned no wages are earned. But, more properly speaking, wages are earned whenever freight is or might be earned, for the sailor ought not to and does not lose his dues when the ship fails to earn freight on account of the fraud or wrongful act of the master or owner. Nor will any special contract between the owner and the freighter, varying the obligation to pay freight from that implied by the general law, have any effect upon wages. If the voyage is broken up, or the seamen are dismissed without cause before the voyage begins, they have their wages for the time they serve, and a reasonable compensation for special damages. In cases where the voyage is broken up by misfortune, so that the master would be