78 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



It certainly seems as thoiigli this enumeratiou of the old Aleuts was 

 painfully short. 



Then, again, with regard to the probable truth of the foregoing 

 statement of the natives, perhaps I should call attention to the fact 

 that the entire sum of seal life in 1836, as given by them, is just 4,100, 

 of all classes, distributed as I have indicated above. Now, on turning 

 to Bishop Veniaminov, b3^ whom was i^ublished the only statement of 

 any kind in regard to the killing on these islands from 1817 to 1837, 

 the j^ear when he finished his work,^ I find that he makes a record 

 of slaughter of seals in the year 1836 of 4,052, which were killed and 

 taken for their skins; but if the natives' statements are right, then 

 onl}^ 50 seals were left on the island for 1837, in which year, however, 

 4,220 were again killed, according to the bishop's table, according to 

 which there was also a steady increase in the size of this return from 

 that date along up to 1850, when the Russians governed their catch 

 b}^ the market alone, always having more seals than they knew what 

 to do with. 



Again, in this connection, the natives say that until 1847 the prac- 

 tice on these islands was to kill indiscriminately both females and 

 males for skins, but after this j^ear, 1847, the strict respect now paid 

 to the breeding seals and exemption of all females was enforced for the 

 first time and has continued up to date. 



Thus it will be seen that there is, frankly stated, nothing to guide 

 to a fair or even an approximate estimate as to the numbers of the 

 fur seals on these two islands prior to my labor. 



Mannek of computing the number of seals. — After a careful 

 study of the subject during three entire consecutive seasons, and a 

 confirmatory rcAnew of it in 1876, 1 feel confident that the following 

 figures and surveys will, upon their own face, speak authoritatively 

 as to their truthful character. 



At the close of my investigation, during the first season of my labor 

 on the ground, in 1872, the fact became evident that the breeding seals 

 obeyed implicity an imperative and instinctive natural law of distribu- 

 tion; a law recognized by each and every seal upon the rookeries, 

 prompted by a fine consciousness of necessity to its own well-being. 

 The breeding grounds occupied by them were therefore invariably 

 covered by the seals in exact ratio, greater or less, as the area upon 

 which the}" rested was larger or smaller. They alwaj'S covered the 

 ground evenly, never crowding in at one place here to scatter out 

 there. The seals lie just as thickly together where the rookery is 

 boundless in its eligible area to their rear and unoccupied by them as 

 they do in the little strij^s wliich are abruptly cut off and narrowed by 

 rocky walls behind. For instance, on a rod of ground under the face 

 of bluffs which hemmed it in to the land from the sea there are just 

 as many seals, no more and no less, as will be found on any other rod 

 of rookery ground throughout the whole list, great and small; always 

 exactly so many seals, under any and all circumstances, to a given 

 area of breeding ground. There are jnst as many cows, bulls, and 

 pups on a square rod at Nah Sj^eel, near the village, where, in 1874, all 

 told, there were only seven or eight thousand, as there are on any 

 square rod at Northeast Point, where a million of them congregate. 



This fact being determined, it is evident that just in proportion as 

 the breeding grounds of the fur seal on these islands expand or con- 

 tract in area from their present dimensions the seals will increase or 

 diminish in number. 



Zapieskie ob Oonalashkenskaho Otdayla, St. Petersburg, 1843. 



