THE BERING SEA CONTROVERSY. 667 



is admitted in the concluding statement — " an inconsiderable re- 

 turn." This means simply that the herd has ceased to be a com- 

 mercial factor, and henceforth under present conditions sealing, 

 whether on land or at sea, must be conducted at a loss. 



This has an important bearing upon the suggested impossibility 

 of bringing about the extinction of the species. It all depends upon 

 whether present conditions are maintained. The breeding islands 

 and the sixty-mile protected zone must be guarded. It cost the 

 United States $175,000 for patrol in 1896. England's expense was 

 less, but still considerable. It is beyond reason that this expensive 

 protection should be continued at a loss or without hope of ultimate 

 restoration of the herd. Ilemove the protection for a single season 

 and the herd would be practically exterminated. A scattered rem- 

 nant would doubtless escape to maintain a melancholy equilibrium, 

 or perhaps to recuperate and again attract the cupidity of some ad- 

 venturous sealing captain, but the herd as such would be at an end. 



Stated without reference to diplomatic necessities, this conclud- 

 ing paragraph admits two important things: first, that the herd of 

 fur seals resorting to the Pribilof Islands is commercially ruined; 

 second, that its extinction as a species only awaits the abandonment 

 of certain arduous and costly measures of protection now maintained 

 solely in the hope of more adequate protection and the ultimate 

 restoration of the herd. 



Such was the work of the Conference of Fur-Seal Experts of 

 1897. The handwriting of diplomacy is mingled with that of science 

 in its findings, but the resulting obscurity affects only minor matters. 

 The important issues of the vexatious Bering Sea controversy are 

 squarely met and finally settled. It is needless to say that there no 

 longer exists a fur-seal question. It is merely a question of how to 

 get rid of the destructive agency of pelagic sealing. This is a matter 

 for diplomacy to adjust. Any odium which may have attached to 

 the " man of science " as a result of the failure of the meeting of 

 1892 is effectually wiped out, and if the lesson is read aright by 

 the nations, henceforth the scientific expert must be counted an 

 essential factor in the settlement of governmental disputes. 



In a paper on the industrial applications of electro-chemistry, Mr. Thomas 

 Ewan points out as among those that may yet be developed, that it is pos- 

 sible, by compressing sulphur dioxide and air into separate carbon tubes 

 dipping in sulphuric acid, to cause the two gases to combine to form sul- 

 phuric acid, and at the same time furnish an electric current. ''The allur- 

 ing prospect,"' he says, "of obtaining electric energy as a by-product in a 

 chemical works should be a sufficient incentive to efforts to overcome the 

 numerous difficulties in the way.'' 



