ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 197 



been equally productive, and, in addition to the vast sums of money which these 

 creatures have yielded, it is calciilated that several thousand tons of shipping have 

 annually been employed in the traffic. ' 



Extermination, the result. — This gives a very fair idea of the 

 manner in whicli the business was conducted in the South Pacific. 

 How long would our sealing interests in Bering Sea withstand the 

 attacks of such a fleet of sixty vessels, carrying from twenty to thirty 

 men each? Not over two seasons. The fact that these great southern 

 rookeries withstood and paid for attacks of this extensive character 

 during a period of more than twenty years s]3eaks eloquently of the 

 millions upon millions that must have existed in the waters now 

 almost deserted by them. 



Early authorities on the appearance of the fur seal. — 

 Whenever I have followed the records made by navigators of any one 

 of these several islands in tlie Antarctic, from whence hundreds of 

 thousands of fur seals are said to have been annually taken, I have 

 never found anything in the line of circumstantial evidence of the 

 fact. ' For instance, had nuy vast rookery, such as is the one at North- 

 east Point, St. Paul Island, been in existence at Masafuera or Juan 

 Fernandez, when they were visited by William Dami)ier in 1683, by 

 Wood-Rogers in 1709, in 1740 and 1767 by Anson and Carteret, surely 

 the extraordinary spectacle must have provoked their attention and 

 description. So far from hinting at any such congregation of massed 

 seal life on the land, they, on the contrary, have more to say in regard 

 to the wild goats which they found there, with the single exception of 

 Dampier. Those were the progeny of the original stock left on the 

 islands by Spanish pirates, long before (1563-1566). I select these 

 two islands for especial reference in this connection, because they 

 had been well known to seamen before the hunting of the fur seal 

 was a recognized business, and described b}^ them. According to the 

 accounts of the sealers, they were the source of several of the largest 

 cargoes of fur-seal skins that were ever taken from any one or two 

 places south of the equator. 



Anson's voyage, 1740-41. — The best description of Juan Fernan- 

 dez, written prior to the ravages of the seal-hunting fleet (1800-1813), 

 is the personal account made of it by Richard Walter, the chaplain 

 to Lord Anson's flagshij^, the Centurion, who lived ashore there for 

 three months, June to September, 1741. Anson's fleet of seven 

 "caravels" was dispersed by a fearful storm in rounding the Horn, 

 and the crews were well nigh exterminated by scurvy. Only four of 

 the vessels succeeded in joining him here, which was the preordained 

 rendezvous; and the ninety days in camp at Juan Fernandez were 

 passed in recuperation of the men and refitting the shattered ships. 



Remarkable physical contrast betv^een Arctic and Ant- 

 arctic rookeries.— I offer this description, by Chaplain Walter, of 

 these celebrated southern sealing grounds, as an interesting statement 

 for comparison with that which I have given of the Pribilof group. 

 Certainly the ultra diff'erence in natural character between St. Paul 

 and St. George at the north and Crusoe's Isle and Masafuera on the 

 south is strongly defined and remarkable. The ground-trailing or 

 creeping willow {Salix reticulata) of Bering Sea is the only tree or 

 shrub that the fur seal can rub against on the Pribilof Islands, but 

 his southern brother is acquainted with the shadow of the cabbage 

 palm. The following is a copy of Walter's picture, drawn from life, 

 and it is a very graphic one : 



' Elliott: Condition of Affairs in Alaska, page 361. 



