ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 175 



gress to change the ratio on each island to a correct basis. In consid- 

 eration of being the only company allowed to take fnr seals on the 

 islands, it has agreed to pay a yearly rental for the use of them, and 

 a tax or duty upon each skin taken and shipped from them ; not to 

 kill more than the stipulated number of seals, and seals of a particu- 

 lar kind; not to molest them on the rookeries or in the water, and to 

 do nothing which would tend to frighten them from the islands, to 

 provide for the comfort, maintenance, education, and protection of 

 the native inhabitants, and neither to furnish nor allow any of its 

 agents to use distilled spirits or spirituous liquors, or to supply them 

 to any of the natives. 



Employees of the Alaska Commercial Company. — The com- 

 pany employs on St. Paul an agent who has general charge of the 

 business on both islands, three assistants, a physician, a school 

 teacher, three carpenters, a cooper, a steward, and a cook; and on 

 St. George, an agent, a physician, a school teacher, and a cook. 



Conduct of the sealing.- — Thegreatworkof the season, the taking 

 and curing of seal skins, begins the first week in June, and is pushed 

 forward as rapidly as possible, as the skins are in the best condition 

 early in the season. This year 90,000 skins were taken on St. Paul by 

 84 men in 39 days. The natives do all the work of driving, killing, 

 and skinning the seals and of curing and bundling the skins, under 

 the direction of the company's agents and of their own chiefs. The 

 first operation is that of driving the seals from the hauling to the 

 killing grounds. The latter are near the salt houses, which are built 

 at points most convenient for shipping the skins, and all the killing 

 is done upon them in order not to disturb the other seals and to save 

 the labor of carrying the skins. The seals suitable for killing (which 

 are the young males from 2 to 6 years old) are readily collected into 

 droves upon the hunting grounds by getting between them and the 

 water, and are driven as easily as a flock of sheep. They move in a 

 clumsy gallop, their bellies being raised entirely from the ground, 

 upon their flippers, which gives them when in motion the appearance 

 of bears. They are sometimes called "sea bears" on account of this 

 resemblance. In driving them care is taken not to hurry them, for if 

 driven too fast they crowd together and injure the skins by biting 

 each other and also become overheated and exhausted. They are 

 driven from one-half mile to 5 miles in from three to thirty-six hours, 

 according to the location of the hauling grounds. After reaching the 

 killing grounds they are allowed to rest and cool for several hours, 

 particularly if the drive has been a long one. The drives vary in 

 number from five hundred to as many thousand, as there happen to 

 be few or many seals upon the hauling ground where the drive is 

 made. In each drive there are some seals that are either so large or 

 so small that their skins are not desirable, and sometimes a few 

 females are driven up — not often, however, as they seldom stray from 

 the rookeries. All such are singled out and i:)ermitted to escape to 

 the water. The killing is done with a blow on the head by a stout 

 club, which crushes the skull, after which the skins are taken off and 

 carried into the salt houses. During the first half of the month of 

 June from 5 to 8 per cent of the seals in the drive are turned away, 

 being either too small or too large, and from 10 to 12 i^er cent during 

 the latter half. In July the percentage is still greater, being about 40 

 per cent for the first and from 60 to"75 per cent for the latter half. 

 About one-half the seals killed are about 3 years old, one-fourth 4, and 

 the remainder 2, 5, and 6. No yearlings have been killed up to the 



