123 



Sea, they wonlcl fire at and iuto the seals 3,550,824 cartridges, each 

 loaded with 15 bnclcshot, all deadly missiles, and nninbering 53,262,360. 



Now, let us suppose that three-fourths of these shots failed to hit the 

 seals and that only half of the number that hit them either killed the 

 seals or wounded them mortally, and we expose this herd of seals to 

 an annual loss of 443,853 seals at the very lowest possible estimate 

 and upon a basis of facts tbat no one can safely dispute. This shows 

 that not more than one seal is taken out of every five seals shot. This 

 seal herd in its present depleted condition can not continue to exist if 

 half that number of seals is taken from it in each of the years from 

 1894 to the end of the century. And if the percentage of female 

 seals killed is equal to two-thirds or even half the whole number, the 

 speed and certainty that must attend the destruction of the herd will 

 be very greatly increased under the plan of Sir John Thompson. 



If we expect that a less number of vessels will hereafter assemble for 

 seal hunting than came in 1892, on what ground can w^e safely base 

 such a conjecture? 



The skins of seals are worth $10 apiecej they were worth that much 

 in 1821, and if the average catch of each vessel is only 250 for five 

 mouths, or 50 seals a month, it is a very large earning, and it leaves 

 half the year for other voyages. If the attack on the seals is iiei initted 

 when they are herded together in Bering Sea in one vast body, or 

 when traveling in large parties up the Pacific coast, the limiting of 

 the hunting season to a brief period will only increase the activitj^ of 

 the pelagic sealers, and as much killing will be done with 200 vessels 

 in one month as would be done with 100 in two months, if the open 

 season was two months instead of one. We could no more safely 

 assume that the sealing fleet in 1894 or 1895 will not exceed the number 

 assembled in 1892 than we could have assumed in 1876 that pelagic 

 hunting would be limited to a single vessel and could not possibly 

 reach the number of 122 vessels by the year 1892. The experience of 

 the last seventeen years on this subject is not to be disregarded. 

 It is a living lesson of truth that the legerdemain of minor and astute 

 calculations can not conceal under a cloud of doubt. The fact remains 

 that in the year 1892, 122 vessels assembled in the North Pacific and 

 took 73,394 skins of dead animals, killing or fatally wounding at least 

 twice that number — 146,788 — in all, 220,182 seals, of which two thirds 

 were females, numbering 146,794. 



There can be but little doubt, on all the evidence, that the number 



