296 ORAL AUGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



Mr. Phelps. — I do not know. I am not proceeding on that point for 

 the moment. 



The President. — From Unalaska — fiom Kadiak! 



Mr. Phelps. — Of course, all we know about the presence of the seals 

 in this connexion is what the logs of the vessels show. We show where 

 the vessels were and we show in most cases how many they caught — 

 not in all — and the course of the vessels, and we have taken what ves- 

 sels got them there and where they went. 



Lord Hannen. — As far as these vessels are concerned, you seem to 

 suggest there is some reason why they could not be traced further. 

 You say they went up into the corner of Unalaska to unload and get 

 supplies. 



General Foster. — That is one ro ison. The other reason is they take 

 a straight course over to the Asiatic side. As you see, this map is on 

 a very large scale and we could not represent the Asiatic side. We 

 have another map showing where some of the vessels were. 



Mr. Phelps. — V/e have another map to show where some of them 

 were — at the Commander Islands. We cannot trace them all of course. 



To consider the question from another i)oint of view. From the Brit- 

 ish Commissioners Eeport I take some extracts to show this. In Sec- 

 tion 177 they say. 



Abreast of, or somewhat further north than, the Queen Charlotte Islands (Lat. 

 53°), a considerable body of seals is often mot Avith at sea by the pelagic sealers in 

 May or June. These seals are then moving north ward. . . . 



About the first of April the Tshimsiaus resort to Zayas Island (Lat. 55°) for the 

 same purpose (hunting of seals from shore). The hunting, as at present practised, 

 extends over Aiuil and the greater part of May; off Banilla Island it is continued 

 through the greater part of June, but this difference is due rather to the option of 

 the Indians than to any diversity in dates in the arrival and departure of the seals 

 in the two places. Seals of both sexes and all ages are killed during the hunting 

 season, and a few full-grown bulls are seen, but are seldom taken. There is, in this 

 region, no interval between the arrival of seals from the north in the early winter 

 and their departure for the north, which occurs in the main about the end of May. 



Sec. 178. Outside Cape Calvert (Lat. 52°) seals are most abundant in March, but 

 a few remain until the latter part of June. The seals coming first are chiefly females, 

 but alter the 1st of June they are nearly all young males. Fully matured large 

 males are found in small numbers. 



Sec. 182. About Barclay Sound (49°) the seal are first reported in December. . . 

 The greater numljer leave before the end of April, when they begin to travel north, 

 but a few are killed, further out at sea, sometimes as late as the 15th June. 



Sec. 181. Captain John Devereux, who has been for twenty-seven years on the coast 

 of British Columbia., .informs us, in reply to questions addressed to him, that 

 from the latter part of November, or early in December, to the beginning of .June, 

 the fur-seal is found off the coast of the entire length of Vancouver Island (18^ 30' to 

 51°), but that in the early winter the weather is altogether too rough for hunting. 



See. 187. In the vicinity of Sitka (58°) some seals appear near the coast as early as 

 the middle of April, but tliey become abundant during May, and some are still seen 

 in the early part of June. 



On the Fairweather ground, in the Gulf of Alaska, (58° 30') seals are most numer- 

 ous from the 1st to 15th of June. About the 25th June, in 1891, they were found in 

 abundance by the sealing-schooners on the Portlock banks, to the east of Kadiak 

 Island. 



About Kadiak (57° to 58°) they are generally found from the 25th of May to the 

 end of June, being most abundant in the average of years about the 10th ,)une. 

 They are seldom seen in July, and very rarely even stragglers are noticed after the 

 middle of that month. 



That is the British Commissioners statement about where the seals 

 are. 



We have the testimony of a good many witnesses on this point. 

 There is the testimony of a great number of Indians, Captain Light- 

 house, for instance — I cannot read them all in the time I have — says. 



The fi'-st seal appear in the Straits (San Juan de Fuca) and on the coast about the 

 last of Dexjember, and feed along the coast, and. seem to be working slowly to the 



