ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



509 



Bering Sea, in its entirety, is a single fish-spawning bank, nowhere deeper than 50 

 to 75 fathoms, averaging perhaps, 40. There are also great reaches of fishing shoals 

 up and down the northwest coast from and above the Straits of Fiica, bordering the 

 entire southern, or Pacific, coast of the Aleutian Islands. The aggregate offish food 

 which the seals find upon these vast ichthyological areas of reproduction must be 

 simply enormous, and fully equal to the most extravagant demand of the voracious 

 appetites of Callorliinl. 



Using the above as a suggestion, several writers have hastily assumed 

 that it would be a good thing if the seals were exterminated; that by 

 exterminating them, just so much more would be given to our salmon 

 and cod fishermen to place upon the markets of the world. These men 

 forget the fact that all animal life in a state of nature, existing to-day 

 as the lishes and seals do, is sustained by a natural equilibrium, one 

 animal preying upon the other, so that year after year only so many 

 seals, so many cod, so many halibut, so many salmon, so many dogfish, 

 and so on throughout the long list, can and do exist. 



Suppose, for argument, that we could and did kill all the seals*, we 

 would at once give the deadly dogfish {Squalm acanthias), which 

 family swarms m these waters, an immense impetus to its present 

 extensive work of destruction of untold millions of young food fishes, 

 such as herring, cod, and salmon fry, upon which it feeds. 



A dogfish can, and does destroy every day of its existence, hundreds 

 and thousands of young cod, salmon, and other food fishes — destroys 

 at least double and quadruple as much as a seal. What is the most 

 potent factor to the destruction of the dogfish ? Why, the seal him- 

 self; and unless man can and will destroy the dogfish first, he will be 

 doing positive injury to the very cause he pretends to champion if he 

 is permitted to disturb this equilibrium of nature, and destroy the seal. 



OFFICERS OF THE GOVERNMENT. 



List of resident Treasury agents who have served on the seal islands of Alaska from 1869 



to 1890. 



CHIEF SPECIAL AGENTS. 



ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENTS. 



Samuel Falconer 



Henry W.EUiott.... 



Francis Lessen 



George Marston 



William J. Mclntyre 



J. H. Moulton 



B. F. Scribner 



John W. Beaman 



W.B.Taylor 



George Wardman . . . 



Louis Kiiiimel 



Herbert G. Fowler . . 



A.P.Loiid 



Thomas J. Ryan 



J. P.Manchester 



William Gavitt 



Joseph Murray 



S. E. Nettleton 



A. W, Lavender 



1870 to 1876. 

 1872 to 187.3. 

 1872 to 1874. 

 1875 to 1877. 

 1874 to 1876. 

 1877 to 1882. 

 1879 to 1880. 

 1879 to 1880. 

 1881 to Auaust 3, 1881. 



1881 to May 29, 1885. 



1882 to 1883. 



1884 to July 1, 1885, only. 



1885 to 1889. 



1885 to 1886. 



1886 to 1889. 



1887 to 1888. 

 1889 to date. 



1889 to date. 



1890 to date. 



