114 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



be superfluous to call up tins question, so that it shall be prominent 

 in discussion and suggestion for future thought. 



Need of careful yearly examination. — In the meantime the 

 movements of the seals upon the great breeding rookeries of St. Paul 

 and those of St. George should be faithfully noted and recorded every 

 year; and as time goes on this record will place the topic of their 

 increase or diminution beyond all theory or cavil. 



manner of taking the seals. 



Exhibit of all skins shipped" from the Pribilof Islands. — 

 As an exhibit of the entire number of fui'-seal skins taken for taxes 

 and sale from the Pribilof Islands between 1797 and 1880, inclusive, 

 I present the following table, which, altliough it may vary from the 

 true aggregate during the long period of nearly one hundred years 

 covered by it, I am nevertheless satisfied it is the best evidence of the 

 kind which can be obtained. Prior to the }' ear 1808 it will be noticed 

 that I have given only a series of estimates for the period antedating 

 that year, as far back as 1862. The reason for this is that I can find 

 nowhere, in writing, an authenticated record of the catch. It was the 

 policy of the old Russian company invariablj^ to take more skins, every 

 year, from these islands down to Sitka than they could profitably dispose 

 of annuallj^ in the markets of the world ; a large surplus being j^early 

 left over, which were suffered to deca.y or be destroyed my moths and 

 subsequently thrown into the sea. I can only judge, therefore, of 

 what they took in that period from what I know they had on hand 

 in their salt house at St. George and St. Paul during 1867, which was 

 40,000 to 48,000 skins; and this the natives told me was a larger aver- 

 age than they had taken for a great manj?^ years prior to that date. 

 Hence, I have pro]3ortioned it back to the last record, which I find in 

 Techmainov, whose figures, embraced in the three jieriods, from 1796 

 to 1861, have been given as copied by him from the authentic archives 

 of the old Russian company. He is careful to say, in this connection, 

 that the exhibit does not show all skins that were taken from the seal 

 islands, but only those which the Russians took for sale from Sitka. 



And, again, other Russian authors, rather than this historian of the 

 Russian American Company, have said that immense numbers of fur- 

 seal skins — hundreds of thousands — were frequently accumulated in 

 the warehouses at Sitka only to decay and be destroyed. Their aggre- 

 gate can not be estimated within any bound of accuracy, and it is 

 not in the sum total of the following table. What we have taken 

 on the island since 1868 is presented below, almost correct. In the 

 appendix, where I give a short digest of Professor Nordenskiold's 

 visit to Bering Island, will be found another table showing the num- 

 ber of skins taken from those Russian Commander Islands. In the 

 following table, relative to the Pribilof group, it will be noticed that 

 there is a gap of ten years, between 1786, the date of their discover}^ 

 and 1805, the time of the earliest Russian record. How many were 

 ta,ken then there is not the faintest evidence in black and white; but 

 we do know that from the time of the discovery of the Pribilof Islands 

 up to 1799 the taking of fur seals on both of these islands progressed 

 without count or lists, and without any responsible head or director, 

 because there were then, upon those islands, seven or eight different 



