52 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



which the Alaska Commercial Company had brought up from San 

 Francisco to St. George Island during the summer of 1873 were con- 

 stantly attracted to the rookeries, and were running in among the 

 "hoUuschickie;" so much so, that they neglected the good pasturage 

 on the uplands beyond, and a small boy had to be regularly employed 

 to herd them where they could feed to advantage. These transported 

 Ovidce, though they could not possibly find anything in their eyes 

 suggestive of comi)anionsliip among the seals, had their ears so 

 charmed by the sheep-like accents of the female pinnipeds as to per- 

 suade them against their senses of vision and smell. 



The sound which arises from these great breeding grounds of the 

 fur seal, where thousands upon tens of thousands of angiy, vigilant 

 bulls are roaring, chuckling, and i3iping, and multitudes of seal 

 mothers are calling in hollow, bleating tones to their young, that in 

 turn respond incessantly, is simply defiance to verbal description. It 

 is at a slight distance softened into a deep booming, as of a cataract; 

 and I have heard it, with a light, fair wind to the leeward, as far as 

 6 miles out from land on the sea; and even in the thunder of the surf 

 and the roar of heavy gales it will rise up and over to j^our ear for 

 quite a considerable distance away. It is the monitor which the sea 

 captains anxiously strain their ears for when they run their dead 

 reckoning up and are laying to for the fog to rise, in ordei* that they 

 may get their bearings of the land. Once heard, they hold on to the 

 sound and feel their way in to anchor. The seal roar at Novastoshnah 

 during the summer of 1872 saved the life of the surgeon^ and G natives 

 belonging to the island, who had pushed out on an egging trip from 

 Northeast Point to Walrus Island. I have sometimes thought, as I 

 have listened through the night to this volume of extraordinary sound, 

 which never ceases with the rising or the setting of the sun through- 

 out the entire season of breeding, that it was fully equal to the churn- 

 ing boom of the waves of Niagara. Night and day, throughout the 

 season, this din upon the rookeries is steady and constant. 



Effects op heat on the seals. — The seals seem to suffer great 

 inconvenience and positive misery from a comparatively low degree of 

 heat, I have often been surprised to observe that, when the tempera- 

 ture was 46° and 48° F. on land during the summer, they would show 

 everywhere signs of distress, whenever they made any exertion in 

 moving or fighting, evidenced by panting and the elevation of their 

 hind flippers, Avhich they used incessantly as so many fans. With 

 the thermometer again higher, as it is at rare intervals, standing at 

 55° and 60°, they then seem to suffer even v/hen at rest, and at such 

 times the eye is struck by the kaleidoscopic appearance of a rookery. 

 In any of these rookeries where the seals are spread out in every im- 

 aginable position their lithesome bodies can assume, all industriously 

 fan themselves. They use sometimes the fore flippers as ventilators, 

 as it were, by holding them aloft motionless, at the same time fanning 

 briskly with the hinder ones, according as they sit or lie. This wav}^ 

 motion of fanning or flapping gives a hazy indistinctness to the Avhole 

 scene which is difficult to express in language; but one of the most 

 prominent characteristics of the fur seal, and perhaps the most unique 



' Dr. Otto Cramer. The suddenness with which fog and wind shut down and 

 sweep over the sea here, even when the day opens most auspiciously for a short 

 boat voyage, has so alarmed the natives in times past that a visit is now never 

 made by them from island to island unless on one of the company's vessels. Sev- 

 eral bidarrahs have never been heard from which, in earlier times, attempted to 

 sail, with picked crews of the natives, from one island to the other. 



