ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 705 



Mr. Elliott's mind, the sujiposed reduction seemed by no means as great 

 as it actually was, because it was based solely upon the advice of the 

 agent in charge of the islands that the quota be reduced from 100,000 

 to 60,000. This turmoil of mind experienced by Mr. Elliott before 

 reaching the islands, which left him " very much confused in thought 

 as to what he should observe," indicates that he entered upon his work 

 with preconceived theories; and the subsequent record of his investi- 

 gations shows that instead of seeking the facts he merely sought 

 material to support his theories. 



Page 328: The contrast here drawn between the state of the Pribilof 

 herd and the herds of the Antarctic is utterly unwarranted. In the 

 Antarctic the rookeries were destroyed by the indiscriminate killing of 

 males and females, old and young, on their breeding grounds. The 

 sealing which destroyed them was exactly the indiscriminate slaughter 

 involved in pelagic sealiug. On the islands superfluous males only were 

 killed. Mr. Elliott does not dare to assert that females were killed, 

 but he implies it in this unwarranted comi^arison. 



Page 329 : As we have already shown, in connection with Mr. Elliott's 

 report of 1872, the surveys on which his estimates at that time were 

 made have no value, if they had auy existence. The figures built upon 

 them are gross exaggerations, and the careless use of them leads one 

 to believe that their author had no sense of their meaning or value. 

 What has been said of the 1872 surveys and estimates applies with 

 equal force to those for 1890, which, as he tells us, are "made in pre- 

 cisely the same time and method." 



For his estimate of 1890 Mr. Elliott arbitrarily compressed the breed- 

 ing areas to one-fourth their former extent, and found a decrease of 

 one-fourth in the breeding seals and young on St. Paul, one-half on St. 

 George. Having done this, he ignores entirely, for the rest of his 

 investigation, the breeding seals, and confines his attention to the 

 bachelors. 



Of course, the estimate of " 750,000 square feet" of area for Lagoon 

 rookery is a slij) of the pen for 75,000, but the increase of the length of 

 this rookery, without comment, to 1,500 feet, as against 750 in 1872, is 

 apparently intentional and not easy to understand. On St. George, 

 where be has made similar extensions of breeding shore front, he 

 explains the necessity by charging it to excessive driving in the vicinity 

 of the breeding grounds, a matter which will be di^cussed again in its 

 proper connection. As no drives were ever made from Lagoon rookery, 

 this reason was not available there, and so no explanation is offered. 

 The same may be said of the increase of 300 feet in the length of Beef 

 rookery. As all the sea front is occupied now, and was presumably 

 fully occupied in 1872, it is difficult to see how it could have been later 

 ext<Mided. 



Page 330: The figures here given for St. George are still less satis- 

 factory. We find in every instance that the sea margin of this island, 

 the breeding area of which Mr. Elliott contended in 1872 was limited 

 by the character of the ground, is largely increased. In the case of 

 Zapadni it is more than doubled, while in the case of East rookery it 

 has increased from 900 to 3,240 feet. As already noted, by these figures 

 tliere is shown a reduction in the sixteen years to about one-fourth in 

 the seals on St. Paul, while on St. George the reduction has been only 

 to one-half. This discrepancy Mr. Elliott does not notice, much less 

 explain. In 1872 the relation between the seals of the two islands was 

 1 on St. George to 19 on St. Paul. In 1890 it is about 1 to 10. During 

 all this time the ratio of killable seals between the two islands, as 

 H. Doc. 92, pt. 3 45 



