306 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



eventually to return to the water, save tlie following (see pp. 150, 203, 

 271), wliicli he has mistranslated from Veniaminof. But here, too, he 

 has led himself into error: 



Elliott's translation {%). 208). Correct translation. 



Nearly all the old ineu think and assert Nearly all the old travelers think and 



that the seals which are spared every assert that sparing the seals for some 



year, i. e., those which have not been years, i. e., not killing them for some 



killed for several years, are truly of little years, does not contribute in the least to 



use for breeding, lying about as if they their increase and only amounts to losing 



were outcasts or disfranchised. them forever. 



Veniaminof thus makes no reference whatever to driving, still less 

 does he refer to any supposed effects of driving upon the reproductive 

 powers of the seal. 



It should be added that both the British commissioners and the 

 British Government have been misled by Elliott's erroneous translation. 

 (See British Commissioners' Eeport, sec. 712, and British counter case, 

 p. 263.) 



(/) The notion that the mere driving of a seal even over rough ground 

 renders it impotent is in itself sufiiciently absurd, but it becomes still 

 more so when considered in connection with the following extract from 

 Mr. Elliott's field notes (p. 244) : 



I have sat for hours at a time watching the seals come up and go down in ceaseless 

 files of hundreds and thousands, actually climbing up in places so steep that it was 

 all an agile mau could do to follow them safely. 



{g) It follows from the above that so far as Elliott's report is relied 

 on to show considerable cause of injury to the herd, it fails entirely. 

 His belief upon this point was founded upon an utter mistake, assuming 

 that he did not wish to be misled. He never saw any redriving or 

 overdriving until 18!)0 (when it did exist); nor had any other witness 

 ever seen any worthy of notice previous to 1890. 



The counsel for Great Britain, seeking for another evidence to prove 

 redriving, have recourse to the report of Mr. Goff for 1890. But he 

 disproves the assertion by distinctly contrasting the large numbers of 

 young seals turned back in 1890, with the small number theretofore 

 turned back. (British counter case, p. 265.) 



{h) Eliminating this clear and manifest error from Elliott's report, 

 the latter proves, and alone proves the following : That in 1872-1874 the 

 herd was in a condition of full and abounding prosperity; that when he 

 next observed it in 1876, its condition was not perceptibly changed; 

 that in 1890, when he last observed it, it had become greatly diminished 

 in numbers, so as to make it difficult to obtain the quota of 100,000 

 without redriving. 



And tliis is just what the United States have from the first maintained. 



lY. 



His melange of observations, reasonings, conjectures, predictions, and 

 criticisms, when scrutinized, will be found to support the positions of the 

 United States in nearly every particular, certainly in each of the fol- 

 lowing : 



(1) That it is in the power of the United States and its lessees under 

 normal conditions to gather the whole annual increase of the seals 

 without dimini.shiug the normal numbers of the herd. 



Page 69: The polygamous habit of this animal is such that, by its own volition, I 

 do not think that more than one male annually out of fifteen born is needed on the 

 breeding grounds in the future. 



