ALASKA INDUSTKIES. 83 



Special Ayent H. W.Elliott; criticism of Br yanfs report i^. 



Smithsonian Institution, 



Washington^ March 0, 1876. 



Sir : I have been informed, and I have learned from Mr. Clarke, Chief 

 Division of Customs, that the Treasury agent, Mr. Charles Bryant, who 

 is in charge of tlie seal islands of Alaska, has urged a reduction in the 

 number of seals that may be killed this year in comi)liance with the 

 provisions of the law approved July, 1870, on the ground that, after a 

 residence on those islands and in charge of the sealing interests there 

 during the last seven years, ho has just discovered the fact that taking 

 100,000 young male seals annually "does not leave a sufficient number 

 of males to mature for the wants of the increase in the number of 

 females," a statement which bears on its own face a self-evident contra- 

 diction. 



If Mr. Bryant had made no other report to the Secretary of the 

 Treasury than the one quoted from above, his statements, indefinite as 

 they are, would have much weight, and he could not be truthfully 

 charged with inconsistency and want of correct appreciation of the 

 duties devolved upon him by the Treasury Department; but, unfor- 

 tunately for the character of this report, he has made six annual reports 

 to the Secretary of the Treasury prior to it — his last report of October 

 11, 1875 — and in each and every one of these reports Mr. Bryant's lan- 

 guage testifies in positive terms to a steady increase in the numbers of 

 the breeding seals; nowhere does he qualify or question this fact, which 

 at the time I disputed in strong terms, as I do now. Now, in 1875, he 

 comes before the Department with a statement which completely ignores 

 his testimony for the six preceding years, and which he stoutly main- 

 tained, with the aid of his friends, in si)ite of my opposition to its truth. 

 I remember a long and a somewhat warm argument which took place 

 between ex- Secretary Boutwell and myself in the fall of 1873 on this 

 subject, in which he declared his firm belief in the truth of Mr. Bryant's 

 testimony as to the great increase in the numbers of the seals, and 

 refused to give in the least adherence to my statement to the contrary, 

 and I then asked for Mr. Bryant's removal on the ground that he was 

 giving to the Secretary of the Treasury an altogether erroneous idea as 

 to the condition of the seal life; and, indeed, Mr. Bryant carried this so 

 far as to advise in one of his annual reports that an addition of 30,000 

 be made to the lawful 100,000 for the season of 1871. 



My theory as to the fact that these seals on the Pribilof Islands 

 have attained for some time past their maximum limit of increase in a 

 state of nature is based upon a rigid stud}' of the subject on the ground 

 during the seasons of 1872, 1873, and 1874, and every step I have taken 

 in arriving at this conclusion is based upon facts, surveys, and figures, 

 as set forth in my report, and the originals I can produce at a moment's 

 notice; while to the contrary Mr. Bryant has never made a survey of 

 the area and position of these breeding grounds about which he speaks 

 in such positive erroneous language, and can not lay before you a single 

 record jnade by him on these fields which will bear him out in his asser- 

 tions; it is mere guesswork with him, and he has never made a series 

 of systematic consecutive examinations of the breeding grounds, which 

 is absolutely necessary to the correctness of any theory which an officer 

 of the Government may advance with regard to the condition of those 

 scattered and extensive breeding fields of the fur-seals on the Pribilof 

 Islands. 



I would, therefore, respectfully urge that Mr. Bryant be instructed 



