ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 259 



1694; but the uame of the donor and the locality being unknown, the 

 matter was allowed to drop by naturalists, and Grew's descriptions 

 were laid aside by them as obscure and apocryphal. Indeed, even as 

 late as 1823, Baron Cuvier said of the Grew diagnosis, ''Que faire de 

 ce phoque— Que faire de cette otarie ?" (Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., tome 



XIII.) 



I say that this specimen was taken from the above localities, in all 

 probability, because, unless it came from tlie Falkland Islands, there 

 were no other fur-seal grounds known to navigators at so early a date. 

 Spanish and English buccaneers were, however, familiar with Juan 

 Fernandez and JMasafuera as soon as 1574-1586, or a full century prior to 

 the receipt of the Grew specimen. These sea pirates, however, prided 

 themselves over their swords alone; so we have no record of what they 

 really knew or did. Nevertheless, some of them evidently employed a 

 leisure hour or day in securing and transmitting the skin above referred 

 to. In summing up, therefore, Henry Brewer, in 1646, at Staten Land, 

 first noticed the southern fur seal. William Dampier, in 1683, first 

 called specific attention to it as a fur seal, and Dr. Grew, as above 

 stated, first described it formally as a new seal to natural science. So 

 much is due to the true literature of the Antarctic fur seal. 



C. Pribilof's discovery of the islands [Section 3].— "Anglieskie 

 Bookta," or English Bay, so called by the natives because in 1849 a 

 large English whale (?) shij) was stranded on the shoals of that reach 

 of the coast, and the wreck driven ashore there. 



D. Land and scenery [Section 4].— This village lagoon has been 

 filling up very perceptibly since 1868, when Hutchinson and Morgan 

 then were able to sail in a small sloop, drawing 6 feet of water, up to 

 its head. To-day such a vessel could not come nearer than half a mile 

 to their anchorage of 1868. The principal shoaling takes place in a 

 duect line here between Tolstoi Mees and the Village Hill, where a 

 rocky reef seems to be slowly rising, pushed up by ice fields. The 

 sloop yacht Jahez Howe, which was wrecked in 1873 on Akootan, is 

 probably the last seagoing vessel that has or ever will gain an entrance 

 to the village lagoon, St. Paul Island, or swing at anchor in the cove. 



E. St. Paul [Section 4].— The physical difiticulties of pedestrianism 

 here recall vividly to my mind the recent death of Mr. Edward Gill, a 

 brother of the distinguished naturalist, Professor Gill, of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. Late in October, 1876, this young man, in company 

 with several of the natives and two agents of the Alaska Commercial 

 Company, started out one bright morning for a walk, intending to go 

 to Northeast Point, then to return by Nahsayvernia, to English Bay, 

 and home to the village in the evening. They had journeyed on this 

 route as far as Maroonitch, at the north shore, when a storm of wirnd 

 and sleet arose which blew directly in their faces as they came across 

 the island to English Bay. Gill sank several times from exhaustion, 

 caused by the severe exercise of walking in the sphagnum on Boga 

 Slov and of jumping over the tussocks near the bay. Finally, at the 

 head of the lagoon, and in sight of the village lights, he dropped into 

 the long grass utterly prostrated. His companions, too weak to carry 

 him farther, struggled on, and when the relief party found him he was 

 warm, but life had departed. He was in perfect health and condition 

 at the starting; but the chill fury of the icy gale had compassed his 

 death. 



