162 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



thick hides; that they can remain under water nearly an honr, or 

 about twice as long as the seals; and that they sink like so many 

 stones, immediately after being shot at sea.^ 



First record op the occurrence of females. — The reason why 

 this band of males, and many of them old ones, should be here to the 

 exclusion of females throughout the year is not plain. The natives 

 assured me that walrus females or their young never have been seen 

 around the shores of these islands, but I have trustworthy advices from 

 the village of St. Paul, at the date of this publication, declaring the fact 

 of the capture of a female on Walrus Islet last fall, the first one ever 

 recorded. 



Geographical distribution of the walrus of Alaska. — The 

 walrus has, however, a very wide range of distribution in Alaska, 

 though not near so great as in prehistoric times.^ They abound to the 

 eastward and southeastward of St. Paul, over in Bristol Bay, where 

 great numbers congregate on the sand bars and flats, now flooded, now 



1 1 personally made no experiments touching the peculiarity of sinking immedi- 

 ately after being shot. Of course on reflection it will appear to any mind that 

 a-1 seals, no matter how fat or how lean, would sink instantly out of sight if not 

 killed at the stroke of the bullet. Even if mortally wounded, the great involun- 

 tary impulse of brain and muscle would be to dive and syeed away, for all swim- 

 ming is submarine when the pinnipeds desire to travel. Touching this mooted 

 question, I had an opportunity when in Port Townsend. during 1S74, to ask a man 

 who had served as a parttier in a fur-sealing schooner off the Straits of Fuca. He 

 told me th;;t unless the seal was instantly killed by the passage of the rifle bullet 

 through its brain it was never secured, and would sink before they could reach 

 the bubbling wake of its disappearance. If, however, the aim of the marksman 

 had been correct, then the body was invariably taken within five to ten minutes 

 alter th i shooting. Only one man did the shooting. All the rest of the crew, ten 

 to twelve white men and Indians, manned canoes and boats, which were promptly 

 dispatched from the schooner, after each report, in the direction of the shooting. 

 How long one of the bodies of these "clean" killed seals would float he did not 

 know. The practice always was to get it as quickly as po-^silile. fearing that the 

 bearings of its position when shot from the schooner might be confused or lost. 

 He also affirmed that in his oi)inion there were not a dozen men on the whole 

 northwest coast who were good enough with a rifle and expert at distance calcu- 

 lation to shoot fur seals successfully from the deck of a vessel on the ocean. The 

 Indians of Cape Flattery get most of the pelagic fur seals by cautiously approach- 

 ing from the leeward when they are asleep and throwing line darts or harpoons 

 into them before they awaken. 



'■'I have been frequently questioned whether, in my opinion, it was more than a 

 short space of time ere the walrus was exterminated or not, since the wha ers had 

 begun to hunt them in Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. To this I frankly make 

 answer that I do not know enough of the subject to give correct judgment. The 

 walrus spend most of their time in waters that are within reach of these skillful 

 and hardy navigators; and if they (the walrus) are of sufficient value to the 

 whaler he can, and undoubtedly will, make a business of killing them and work 

 the same sad result th;it he has brought about with the mighty schools of cetacea 

 which once whistled and bared their Laci.s throughout the now deserted waters of 

 Bering Sea, in perfect peace and seclusion, prior to 1842. The returns of the old 

 Russian America Company show that an annual average of lO.OUO walrus have 

 been slain by the Eskimo since 1799 up to 18(37. There are a great many left yet. 

 But unless the oil of Rosmarus becomes very precious, commercially, I think the 

 shoal waters of Bristol Bay and Kuskokwim mouth, together with the eccentric 

 tides thereof, will preserve it indefinitely. Forty years ago, when the North 

 Pacific was the rendezvous of the greatest whaling fleet that ever floated, those 

 vessels could not, nor can they now, approach nearer than 60 or even 80 miles of 

 the muddy shoals, sands, and bars upon which the walrus rest there, scattered in 

 herds of a dozen or so in numbers iip to bodies of thousands, living in lethargic 

 peace and almost unmolested, except in several small districts which are carefully 

 hunted over by the natives of Ugashik for oil and ivory. 1 have been credibly 

 informed that they also breed in Bristol Bay and along the coast as far north as 

 Cape Avinova, during some seasons of exceptional rigor in the Arctic, 



