MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 107 



bein" - allowed on the rookeries by the older males, nor the yearlings. 

 If we now add those frequenting St. George's Island, which number 

 half as many, and make a very liberal discount for those that may be 

 destroyed before reaching maturity, the number is still enormous. It 

 will also be seen that the great importance of the seal fishery is not to 

 be calculated from the basis of its present yield, since each year adds 

 to its extent, as with proper care the number can be increased until 

 both islands are fully occupied by these valuable animals* 



Peculiar situation of the Pribylqff Island. — These islands are situ- 

 ated immediately between the northern edge of the great warm oceanic 

 current, — which, passing into Behring's Sea west of the Aleutian 

 Islands and flowing east through Ounimak Straits, enters the Gulf 

 of Alaska at that point, — and the edge of the rotary cold current 

 which flows from the Gulf of Anadir east through Norton Sound, 

 returning westward to this point again. These currents furnish the 

 necessary climatic conditions of a cool uniform temperature and hu- 

 mid atmosphere necessary to these animals, while their position is just 

 far enough south to escape being visited by the polar bears floating on 

 the ice, as is not the case with the island of St. Matthew's, the nearest 

 land on the north. There are no other islands possessing these ad- 

 vantages in an equal degree. Behring's and Copper Islands, further 

 westward, in Russian waters, approach it nearest. 



Prices paid for the Skins at the Islands, and their Value in Eu- 

 rope. — The Russian company allowed the natives the value of ten 

 cents per skin. This was the pay they received for the labor of kill- 

 ing, curing the skins, and delivering them alongside the vessel ready for 

 shipment, the company finding salt and magazines in which to salt 

 them. 



The parties who took advantage of the interval between the transfer 

 of the Territory and the enacting and enforcement of the law of the 

 27th of July, 1868, to kill and purchase of the natives, paid twenty- 

 seven cents per skin, and had they been allowed to trade the present 



* It may be added that the United States government has already taken measures to 

 prevent an undue decrease of the fur seals of the Pribyloff Islands, in the amendment 

 to the bill for the preservation of the fur-bearing animals of Alaska, which was passed 

 by Congress early in July of the present year, and that private parties have interested 

 themselves in the preservation of the sea lions that frequent portions of the California 

 coast. — j. a. a. 



