194 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



DIGEST OF THE DATA IN EEGARD TO THE FUR-SEAL ROOKERIES OF 

 THE SOUTH ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC, AND NUMBER OF SKINS TAKEN 

 THEREFROM. 



Difficulty of finding credible records. — Before I introduce 

 the reader to this subject, I desire to call his attention to the source 

 from which nearlj^ all the information which we have touching: it is 

 derived. It comes from the verbal and written statements of whalers 

 and other seafaring men. The great difficulty which faces me as I 

 attempt to make up this digest from such authority is the fact that I 

 know the failing of sailors too well — am too conversant with their 

 habits of loose and positively erroneous narration. For instance, as 

 an illustration of this trouble, suppose A had taken a large cargo of 

 fur-seal skins from the Crozette Islands some time in 1820-1825, and 

 when on the homeward stretch had been met at sea by B, another 

 whaler or sealer; A would invariably tell B, in answer to queries as 

 to where he got his catch, that he secured the seals at any other island 

 far away from the real source of supply, in order that he might turn 

 B aside and have a clear field, and a full ship at the Crozettes again 

 when he should discharge at home. and return. The story, however, 

 would probably get into circulation, and into print, pei-haps; and 

 to-day is misleading us, just as it did B long ago. 



Scanty records.— If anybody doubts the correctness of my state- 

 ment, made in the prefatorj^ words of this monograph, to wit, that 

 though a sealing fleet of hundreds of vessels and thousands of men 

 had repaired to the rookeries of the southern oceans, and had annually 

 returned laden with the skins of the Arctocepliahis, still not a definite 

 line as to the true result — i. e., the number of skins taken from those 

 great Antarctic breeding grounds — can be found in any writing, let 

 him turn to the laborious work of Allen, who for eight or nine long 

 years has ransacked tlie writings and the musty records of a century 

 back, and see in his history of the North American pinnipeds the piti- 

 ful sum of knowledge which lie has gathered in regard to the subject.^ 

 Prior to the tedious research and publication just referred to, in look- 

 ing toward the same end, I gathered substantially as much information 

 in the Encyclopedia Britannica and in Hamilton's Amphibious Mam- 

 malia.^ But tl>e amount of this information is so abortive and faulty 

 tliat I hesitate to reprint it here ; yet perhaps its republication , together 

 with the equally brief and indefinite compilation of Allen, may draw 

 out from some unexpected quarter further knowledge. Hence I sub- 

 mit the following : 



DESTRUCTION OF THE FUR SEALS FOR THEIR PELTRIES. 



The value of the peltries of the fur seal has led to wholesale destruction, amount- 

 ing at some localities almost to extermination. The traffic in their skins appears 

 to have begun toward the end of the last century. Captain Fanning, of the ship 

 Betsey, of New York, obtained a fxill cargo of choice fur-seal skins at the island of 

 Masafuera. on the coast of Chile, in lT9b, which he took to the Canton market. 

 Captain Fanning states that on leaving the island, after procuring his cargo, he 

 estimated there were still left on the island between 500,000 and 700,000 fur seals, 

 and adds that subsequently little less than 1,000.000 of fur-seal skins were taken at 

 the island of Masafuera alone," a small islet of not over 25 miles in circumference, 



1 Allen: History North American Pinnipeds, 1880, pp. 239, 230. 

 •^Edinburgh, 1839. 



•'Fanning: Voyages to the South Sea, etc., pp. 117, 118. Allen: North American 

 Pinnipeds. 



