4 ' ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Previous observations of Steller and others. — In treating this 

 subject tlie writer has trusted to nothing save what he himself has seen ; 

 for until these life studies were made by him no succinct and consecu- 

 tive history of the lives and movements of these animals had been pub- 

 lished by any man. Fanciful yarns, woven by the ingenuity of whaling 

 captains, in which the truth was easily blended with that which was not 

 true, and short paragraphs, penned hastily by naturalists of more or 

 less repute, formed the knowledge that we had. Best of all was the 

 old diary of Steller, who, while suffering bodily tortures, the legacy of 

 gangrene and scurvy, when wrecked with Vitus Bering on the Com- 

 mander Islands, showed the nerve, the interest, and the energy of a 

 true naturalist. He daily crept, with aching bones and watery eyes, 

 over the bowlders and mossy flats of Bering Island, to catch glimpses 

 of those strange animals which abode there then as they abide to-day. 

 Considering the physical difficulties that environed Steller, the notes 

 made by him on the sea bears of the North Pacific are remarkably 

 good; but, as I have said, they fail so far from giving a fair and ade- 

 quate idea of what these immense herds are and do as to be absolutely 

 valueless for the present hour. Shortly after Steller's time great 

 activity sprang up in the South Atlantic and Pacific over the capture 

 and sale of fur-seal skins-taken in those localities. It is extraordinary, 

 that though whole fleets of American, English, French, Dutch, and 

 Portuguese vessels engaged, during a period of protracted enterprise 

 of over eighty j^ears in length, in the business of repairing to the 

 numerous rookeries of the Antarctic, returning annually laden with 

 enormous cargoes of fur-seal skins, yet, as above mentioned, hardly a 

 definite line of record has been made in regard to the whole transac- 

 tion, involving, as it did, so much labor and so much capital. 



Former publications of the writer. — A brief digest of the writer's 

 notes, relating principally to the business on the islands, was prepared 

 and given to the Treasury Department in 1873-74. This was printed 

 by the Secretary and has been the text of guidance, as to observation, 

 employed by the agents of the Government ever since. The maps and 

 sketch maps are herewith accordinglj'^ given to the public for the first 

 time. The author, fearing that private and personal afl'airs which 

 now confine him may possibly never permit his going over to the 

 Asiatic rookeries, thinks it perhaps better that what he now knows 

 definitely in regard to the matter should be published without longer 

 delay. 



It was with peculiar pleasure that the writer undertook, at the sug- 

 gestion of Professor Baird, who is the honored and beloved secretary 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, the task of examining into and report- 

 ing upon this subject; and it is also gratifying to add that tlie state- 

 ments of fact and the hypotheses evolved therefrom by him in 1874 

 have, up to the present time, been verified by the inflexible sequence 

 of events on the ground itself. The concurrent testimony of the 

 numerous agents of the Treasury Department and the Government 

 generally, who have trodden in his footsteps, anijily testifies to their 

 stability. (See note, 39, A.) 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE FUR SEAL. 



Peculiarities of distribution. — Our first thought in studying 

 the distribution of the fur seals throughout the high seas of the earth 

 is one of wonder. While they are so widely spread over the Antarctic 

 regions, yet, as we pass the equator going north, we find in the Atlantic 



