488 



ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



ten, join iu the general comfort whicli the water certainly affords them, 

 and as these females and the fresh animals of their own kind haul out 

 on land they join again and fall into this deadly procession to the land 

 from whence they were driven early this morning. How the significanec 

 of this driving now keeps rising to my mind! I had little occasion In 

 1872-1874 to give it thought, and what I did was only in a suggestive 

 mood. 



I passed up from the killing grounds over to Tolstoi rookery and gave 

 the drivers' path or seal road a careful review. A few hoUuschickie 

 were again hauled out under Middle Hill and a dozen perhaps on the 

 Tolstoi rookery sand intersection; but the great hauling grounds of 

 English Bay are utterly destitute of seal life at the hour of this writing 

 and have been so, with the marked exception of that small spot under 

 Middle Hill and the juxtaposition of Tolstoi rookery, which are the 

 only points where the seals now haul in all that vast extent of ground 

 pattered over by them here in 1872-1874. 



Not any hoUuschickie on Zoltoi sands to-day, and only one or two on 

 the rocks beyond and above, from whence they have been driven thus 

 far, as Zoltoi seals. Mr. Goft' assures me that there was no driving from 

 the sands here last year ; it was all from these rocks above. When this 

 famous hauling ground began to fail was the time for the note of warn- 

 ing to have been sounded. When did it fail ? 



Jtdy 1, 1890. — The following are field notes of the podding and club 

 biug of drive made from every section of the reef, everything in back 

 of Zoltoi Bluffs, Garbotch, and the entire circuit of the reef. 



Whole number of animals driven, 1,998; number taken, 245, or 89 

 per cent rejected. Last drive from this place, June 28, whe7i 85 per 

 cent were rejected. Everything taken over a 5-pound skin and under 

 the "wigged" 4 and 5 year old pelts. Ninety per cent of the seals 

 rejected to-day were yearlings. 



This is the largest number yet driven in any one drive from this place 

 thus far this season, and the catch among the smallest. The yearlings 

 driven before, plus the new arrivals, are making the ratio. 



Not a seal on the hauling grounds and sands of Lukannon Bay, and 

 none on Ketavie; about 500 yearlings at Middle Hill, and none of that 

 pod near the sand beach at Tolstoi rookery that I saw yesterday after- 

 noon. They have evidently made for Middle Hill. 



