loo POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the commissions. I should greatly regret having any one understand 

 that there was the slightest intimation of the existence of a " hand- 

 some retainer," or anything of the sort, in connection with any or all 

 of the Bering Sea investigations. 



As far as the American representatives on the first commission 

 are concerned, it is no harm to say that the pecuniary residual was un- 

 fortunately affected by the wrong sign, and this was doubtless the 

 case as well with Dr. Jordan and his colleagues. 



As to the truth of the statement regarding the " scientific ex- 

 pert," no evidence need be offered here, for it is furnishd by every 

 court in the land, and not a day passes that does not witness a struggle 

 between " experts " who have nearly always started from the same 

 premises, but whose conclusions are diametrically opposed to each 

 other. What I do want to say is that this is quite consistent with 

 the perfect honesty and good intent of the experts themselves. It is 

 the result of the limitations to which the operations of the human 

 intellect are still subjected, and it is a fact always to be reckoned with 

 in matters of this kind. There should be no skepticism as to the 

 honesty and frankness of Sir George Baden-Powell and Dr. George 

 M. Dawson in assuming an attitude so opposed to that of the American 

 commissioners in 1892. 



Mr. Clark regards my article of 1897 as a " prediction of failure 

 for the new commission," an assumption quite unjustified and un- 

 sustained by the article itself, in which the fullest recognition is 

 shown of the great value of the work of Dr. Jordan and his col- 

 leagues. Indeed, the article was purposely prepared and published 

 before the meeting of the second commission, that it might not seem 

 to be in any way a criticism upon its work. Now that both com- 

 missions have made public their findings, the whole matter is easily 

 accessible, but Mr. Clark is hardly just to the first commissioners on 

 either side, by the slight reference he makes to their separate reports 

 to their respective governments. A more careful study of both 

 might have led to some modification of his views, even concerning the 

 partition of authorship which he has ventured to make. It is no 

 mean compliment, however, to find him admitting, in regard to the 

 report of the American commissioners, that " not a single statement 

 of fact in it has proved fallacious, and the more exhaustive investiga- 

 tions of 1896 and 1897 corroborate its conclusions in every particu- 

 lar." And this admission lies adjacent to his assertion that '^ the 

 investigations conducted by the two commissions [of 1891] were, 

 from a scientific point of view, of the nature of a farce." The fact 

 is, ^Ir. Clark seems to have strangely misunderstood the character 

 of the investigations which were contemplated and desired. The 

 natural history of the fur seal was not the question submitted to 



