362 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



coming from tlie village for this purpose, and directing the seals back 

 in their tracks.^ 



Starry Arteel has 500 feet of sea and cliff margin, with 125 feet of 

 average depth, making ground for 30,420 breeding seals and their young. 



STARRY ARTEEL ROOKERY (1890). 

 [^Its condition and appearance July, 1890.'\ 



This rookery, I am inclined to believe, is the only one on St. George 

 Island that really did increase in size since my work of 1873. The 

 natives all unite in saying that it " grew larger and larger " until 1878; 

 then it ceased to expand, and during the last four years it has gone 

 into a rapid decline — " worse than any other here except the East 

 rookery; nothing, really nothing, there." In 1874, when on this rook- 

 ery, in reviewing my survey of 1873, I could not detect any increase or 

 change worthy of note whatever: but, at Zapadnie I thought I found 

 ground for a small increase there of nearly 5,000 : still I was not wholly 

 certain of it, inasmuch as the day was very foggy, and I could not 

 entirely trust my compass bearings. 



Here, as at Zapadnie, is that undue extension of sea margin for the 

 number of seals occupying the ground, caused by that peculiar driving 

 which has been in vogue on each island ever since the shrinking of the 

 supply of killable seals in 1882. In 1873, this breeding ground of Starry 

 Arteel was a compact oblong oval mass of breeding seals resting on 

 that steep hill slope of volcanic breccia and cement which these seals 

 seem to love so well (happy as It is as to drainage and always free from 

 mud and dust). Then it had but 500 feet of sea and cliff' margin, but 

 had an average depth of 125 feet. Within these lines 30,000 breeding 

 seals and young were easily located. To-day it presents a straggling 

 belt of 800 feet of cliff and sea margin, with a scant 40 feet of average 

 depth : upon which a very liberal estimate can not place more than 16,000 

 animals, old and young. 



'Driving the holluscliickie on St. George, owing to the relative scantiness of 

 hauling area for those animals there, and consequent small numbers found upon these 

 grounds at any one time, is a very arduous series of daily exercises on the part of the 

 natives who attend to it. Glancing at the map, the marked considerable distance, 

 over an exceedingly rough road, will be noticed between Zapadnie and the village; 

 yet in 1872 eleven different drives across the island, of 400 to 500 seals each, were 

 made in the short four weeks of that season. 



The following table shows plainly the striking inferiority of the seal life, as to the 

 aggregate number, even as far back as 1872 on this island, compared with that of St. 

 Paul: 



JRookeries of St. George. 



Zapadnie (between June 14 and July 28) 



Starry Arteel (between June C and July 29) 



North rookery (between June 1 and July 27) '. 



Little Eastern 



Great Eastern (between June 5 and July 28) 16 9, 714 



The same activity then in "sweeping" the hauling grounds of St. Paul would have 

 brought in ten times as many seals and the labor have been vastly less ; the driving 

 at St. Paul was generally done with an eye to securing each dayof the season only 

 as many as could be well killed and skinned on that day, according as it was warm 

 or cool. 



