484 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



point, for it was driven this far from there on the morning of the 23d 

 instant. So, again, this question keeps rising, How many of these driven 

 seals that are released finally die of internal injuries received during their 

 overland trip to the slaughtering grounds f and How many of them really 

 live ivell after they have been redriven in this manner^ many times from 

 these several hatding grounds of 8t. Paul f More and more forcibly arises 

 to my mind the statement of the natives in 1834, who assured Bishop 

 Yeniamiuovthat the young males driven here and spared, never became 

 fit afterwards for breeding puri)oses, and never, after this driving, went 

 upon the rookeries. 



Certainly, it becomes clearer and clearer to my mind, that those young 

 males, which as yearlings, survive the driving here of that year of their 

 age, and then return to survive the driving of the second year of their 

 age; then, surviving this trial, reappear to be driven over again in their 

 third year, to be released and again, if alive, to be redriven up here in 

 their fourth year, and then finally, */ surviving these five consecutive 

 seasons of unwonted violent physical effort, unnatural efforts, to be again 

 driven, as I see them to-day, in their fifth year of growth, ivhat, indeed, 

 can we reasonably expect of them in their sixth year! even if they do 

 manage to endure (some of them, not many of them) all of this intense 

 physical suffering, exhaustion, straining of tendons, congestions of 

 lungs and brain, and heart suffusions. The more I think over this 

 matter the more I believe that the natives were right : and Yeniaminov 

 says that they "truly assert" it. 



I had this point in my thoughts during my studies of 1872-1874; but 

 at that time, no holluschicMe icere driven from Southivest Point, from 

 Zapadnie, from TonMe Mees or Stony Point, or from Polavina; no seals 

 were driven from these places, where everybody admitted that full half 

 of the entire number belonging to the island congregated : and, tben the 

 percentage of rejected or turned out seals on the killing grounds, was 

 really very small. There was not much wasted energy: most of the 

 seals driven then, were killed, and duly skinned. 



Therefore, it did not then impress me. It seemed immaterial: for, 

 there was an immense reserve of undriven, undisturbed young male 

 life. The natives themselves said that all was well, even if those spared 

 seals of 1872, never went to the rookeries. How difl'erent at this writing. 

 In 1879 the distant driving began here: and that marks the date of the 

 decline of the hauling grounds. At the rate of decrease uj) to the 

 present wretched order of affairs, it will now require seven years of 

 unbroken rest on land and sea to bring back a condition such as I found 

 and recorded here in 1872-1874. Perfect rest must be given here on the 

 islands, and full protection in Bering Sea. 



June 26, 1800. — Not a single holluschak or half bull on Zoltoi sands 

 this morning, and there has not been one near it since that sweep of 500 

 half bulls, or yearlings, made there on the morning of the 24th instant. 

 This time in 1872, it would have been overrunning with seals from the 

 bay clear over to the summit of Gull Hill, even if driven clean every 

 morning ! The sealing weather here, since the 1st of June, has simply 

 been perfect; it is as fine as could be desired; and yet, the astonishing 

 poverty of these empty hauling grounds is sought to be ignored in cer- 

 tain quarters. A hundred gifted tongues, speaking in emphatic har- 

 monious accord, could not tell the story of destruction better than those 

 vacant sands of Zoltoi, as they api)eal to your eye and understanding 

 this morning. 



I walked over to the Zapadnie killing grounds this morning, arriving 



