258 ' ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Special agents of the Treasury Department.— Prior to March, 



1872, the su])ervisioii of the Treasury Department over its interests on 

 tliePribilof Islands was directed by the detail of special agents from 

 the Secretary, who paid them out of a contin<^ent fund of $50,000, 

 which Congress voted in 1868 for the "collection of customs'' in Alaska. 

 This appropriati(m running out, the Secretary drew the following bill, 

 which Congress adopted, and it was approved March 5, 1872: 



Be it enacted, etc., That the Secretary of the Treasury be, aucl he is hereby, author- 

 ized to appoint one agent and three assistant agents, who shall be charged Avith the 

 management of the the seal fislieries in Alaska, and the performance of such other 

 duties as ujay be assigned to them by the Secretary of the Treasury ; and the said 

 agent shall receive the sum of ten dollars per diem; one assistant agent the sum of 

 ei"-ht dollars per diem ; and two assistant agents the sum of six dollars each per diem 

 while so employed ; and thev shall also be allowed their necessary traveling expenses 

 in going to and returning from Alaska, such expenses not to exceed the sum of three 

 hundred dollars in any one year. , • n j. ^ 



Sec. 2. That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and is hereby, authorized to erect 

 a dwelling house upon each of the islands of St. Paul and St. George for the use of 

 said agents, the cost of both not to exceed the sum of six thousand dollars. 



Sec. 3. That the said agents be, and they are hereby, empowered to administer 

 oaths in all cases relating to the service of the linitcd States, and to take testimony 

 in Alaska for the use of the Government in any manner concerning the public 

 revenues. 



Under this law the present force of Treasury oflacers is creditably 

 maintained on the Pribilof Islands. Living there, as they do, in perfect 

 isolation, so far from headquarters, it is necessary that, to insure the 

 personal ability of the oflicers to be out on the killing grounds in the 

 sealing season, two agents at least should be detailed upon each island, 

 as they are; should one fall sick, tlien the other is on hand. The work 

 every year of taking the seals, like the moving of the tides, can not 

 and will not wait for any man; it is literally "now or never" with its 

 conduct. 



PARAGRAPHS OF REFERENCE RELATIVE TO SUBJECTS DISCUSSED IN 

 THE PRECEDING MEMOIR, AND REFERRED TO AS NOTE 39. 



A. Previous publications of the writer [Section 1]. — I allude, 

 at the outset, to the fact that a brief digest of my surveys had been 

 published by the Government in 1873-74. It is entitled Condition of 

 Affairs in Alaska: 8", 1874. This report was principally given up to 

 the state of the fur trade over all Alaska, the people and resources 

 thereof. It also contains the substance of a still briefer report of mine 

 made upon the Pribilof Islands in September, 1873, and was printed by 

 the Treasury Department during my absence in Alaska. Owing to 

 causes of which I haviB necessarily no personal knowledge, only 75 

 copies of this report were struck off. It was illustrated by 50 quarto 

 p^ctes photographed from my drawings and paintings. 



B. St. Felix must not be confounded with Masafuera [Sec- 

 tion' 21.— The overshadowing number of fur seals found on Masafuera 

 and Juan Fernandez islands, just to the southward of this island, has 

 caused a greal deal of confusion as to the existence, or not, of Arcto^ 

 ceplialns on this island and Ambrosia Islet, in the old records and 

 statements of Antarctic fur sealers. It has, however, never been a very 

 prominent rookery, but it has been one, nevertheless, and hence I give 



its name. . „ ^ t.^ ■ t 



A fur-seal skin was taken from either the Straits of Le Maire or Juan 

 Fernandez as early as 1680, and presented to the Museum of the Eoyal 

 Society iu London. Here it was first noticed as new by Dr. Grew, in 



