48 THE DEPONENTS AND THEIR EXPERIENCE. 



Copper and Bering Islands, commonly called the Commander Islands, 

 which said company had a lease of the said Commander Islands as well 

 as of the island of Tuleni or Robben, in the Okhotsk Sea, to kill seals 

 and other fur-bearing animals on those islands on the payment of a 

 royalty to the Russian Government. During the years above-mentioned 

 I have superintended the killing of, on the average, 18,000 seals a year; 

 and in the last year of my employment by the Russian Sealskin Com- 

 pany I killed or superintended the killing of 30,000 seals. The skinning, 

 curing of skins, packing of skins, and shipping of the skins from the 

 islands of all the seals the killing of which I superintended has been 

 under my immediate supervision, and a considerable part of the work 

 thereof has been done by me personally. 



That during my employment on said Pribilof Islands I carefully 

 studied the habits of the fur-seal and the statements hereafter made as 

 to the habits of said animals are based on my own observation and also 

 from the fact that these statements have been corroborated by natives 

 and residents on said islands, whom I know to be familiar with every 

 phase of seal life. 



John Morris, being duly sworn, deposes and says: My age is 34 

 years, my occupation seaman, and my residence 

 John Morris, p. 340. is Victoria, British Columbia. I have had six 

 years' experience in sealing, both in the North 

 Pacific and the Bering Sea. In February, 1882, 1 went sealing from 

 Victoria, British Columbia, in the schooner Onward. * * * I 

 shipped as mate. * * * About the last of April, 1883, 1 sailed from 

 Victoria on a sealing voyage in the Onward. * * * About the 1st 

 of January [1881] 1 sailed as master of the Alfred Adams on a sealing 

 voyage. * * * In February, 1885, I sailed from Victoria, British 

 Columbia, on the schooner Seventy-six. * * * In the month of Feb- 

 ruary, 1887, I sailed from Victoria, British Columbia, in the schooner 

 Black Diamond. 



Matthew Morris, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I was born at 

 Kasan and am 22 years old. Am a hunter by oc- 



Mattliew Morris, p. 286. cupation and have hunted fur-seal in canoes off 

 Prince of Wales Island. 



John M. Morton, having been duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 



United States shipping commissioner at San Francisco. The Alaska 



Commercial Company obtained the lease of the 



Jno. M. Morton, p. 66. seal islands in 1870. In the fall of that year I 

 went to Alaska on the steamer Constantine as an 

 agent of said company, arriving at St. Paul Island in October, where 

 I remained until the close of the sealing season in the following year. 

 During the summer of 1872, I visited all of the trading posts of the 

 company, both on the mainland of Alaska and the various islands, thus 

 spending the entire summer in Bering Sea. This trip was extended to 

 Copper and Bering islands, belonging to the Russians, and of which 

 members of the Alaska Commercial Company had control at that time, 

 and to the Petropaulovski in Kamchatka. In the course of our voy- 

 age in 1872, we touched twice at the seal islands of Alaska, spending 

 there all together, perhaps, a week or ten days. During our stay at St. 

 Paul this year, I visited (in July) most of the rookeries and hauling 

 grounds of the fur-seals. 



The summer of 1873 I spent on St. George, and while there my busi- 



