ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 477 



conclusion that it was, and is one of the several steam whalers that are 

 known to be cruising in Bering Sea this season. 



Peter Peshenkov, one of these watchmen, said that yesterday was a 

 fine day, still, and semiclear. He went around the entire circuit of the 

 rookery, carefully inspecting the sea margin. He says that he found 

 about 200 holluschickie hauled immediately up on the north side ot 

 Sea Lion Neck. He says that nowhere else was there any holluschickie, 

 except a few polseecatchie on the beach just below the south shoulder: 

 and, everywhere else, outside of the straggling old bulls, nothing. 

 Peter and Carp Booterin came into the house during the afternoon while 

 the storm was in progress, and talked to Mr. Goff and myself freely 

 over the condition of this rookery, as well as the others. 



June 16, iSPO.— Webster House, 9 a. m. Carp Booterin and Neon 

 Mandriggan made a circuit of Northeast Point this morning. They 

 report to Mr. Goff no sign of vessel landing or sealing anywhere on the 

 circuit. They say that there are about 300 holluschickie on the Staff 

 Bight: about 200 good ones on the north slope of Hutchinson Hill, and 

 a few, very few, at or near the South Shoulder. I came down on foot 

 to the village, giving Polavina a survey along outside, so as to see the 

 old and new seal grass on that famous parade. It is somewhat too 

 soon to arrive at a conclusion: but what I saw, and noted, causes 

 surprise. . . 



Suppose you had, sixteen years ago, stood on an eminence overlook- 

 ing a sheep pasture three-fourths of a mile in length and one-fourth to 

 one-half a mile in width : this lot filled with a flock of sheep so full as 

 to fairly whiten with their bodies the whole surface of the green earth 

 upon which they slept, grazed, and stood in groups. Then today to 

 stand again upon the same eminence, overlooking the same ground and 

 life, and see nothing but a few lonely, wide-scattered bands of sheep, 

 and these so few in number that it requires no effort to count them one 

 by one. That desolate impression made thus upon you, is precisely the 

 impression that these hauling grounds of St. Paul Island make upon 

 me to-day. Perhaps the next month may improve matters, but Mr. 

 Goff says that it will not. ^ ^t i c i 



June 17, 1890.— 1 made a review of the abandoned site of Nah bpeel 

 rookery this morning. The last buUs and cows hauled here in 1886. 

 In 1872-1874 there were some 8,000 bulls, cows, and pups here, with 400 

 feet of sea margin, 40 feet deep. In 1876 they had fallen off to less 

 than half that number, having gone over across the way to Lagoon 



rookery. . ^-. ^• 



This abandonment gives me a good basis for an estimation ot the time 

 it takes for nature to remove the traces of seals hauling on the rocks. 

 These rocks of Nah Speel rookery, under my feet this morning, were m 

 1872-1874, so polished by the flippers of CaUorMnus that nothing save 

 the shiny basalt, olivine, and gray lava was to be seen; to-day, they are 

 literally covered with yellow and gray lichens : and, were it not for the 

 evidence of those seal-grass tussocks up above them, a practiced eye 

 would not, could not, suspect the previous existence of a breeding rook- 

 ery on them. And this all effaced in less than twelve years, partially 

 by the lapse of the first six, then wholly within the last five years. How 

 important it is, therefore, to have these breeding grounds correctly 

 surveyed at frequent intervals: so that ebb or flow of this seal-life tide 

 can be truthfully registered. Certain it is, nothing can be definitely 

 trusted to memory in this respect. 



June 17, 1890.— On the Eeef and Garbotch. Where are the polsee- 

 catchie, or half hulhf Where, indeed, are those young 5 and 6 year 

 old bulls which were literally swarming at the water's edge of these 



