162 MANAGEMENT OF THE SEAL ROOKERIES. 



Improvement before tliis means of transportation was pro- 



ovorRiissian meth- 

 ods of taking, videcl.^ Anton Melovedoff states that "in tlie 



Russian times, before 1868, the seals were always 

 driven across the island of St. Paul from North 

 East Point (the largest of the rookeries) to the 

 village salt house, a distance of twelve and one- 

 half miles, but when the Alaska Commercial 

 Company leased the islands they stopped long 

 driving and built salt houses near to the hauling 

 grounds, so that by 1879 no seals were driven 

 more than two miles." ^ Other natives who were 

 on the islands under both American and Russian 

 control also sjjeak of the shortening of the drives 

 by the American lessees.^ Under these improve- 

 ments the killing season was reduced from three 

 or four months under the Russian occupation to 

 thirty or forty days,* showing how much Ameri- 

 can management has facilitated the taking of 

 seals and reduced the number of days of disturb- 

 ance to the herd. Kerrick Artomanoff, a native 

 born on St. Paul Island sixty-seven years ago, 

 and who has driven seals for fifty years and was 

 chief for seventeen years, says: ''The methods 



ij. H. Moulton, Vol. II, p. 72; Charles Bryant, Vol. II, p. 9; 

 H. H. Mclntyre, Vol. II, p. 45. 



2 Vol. II, p. 142. 



sAgo-ie Knshin, Vol. II, p. 129; Karp Bntorin, Vol. II, p. 104; 

 Daniel Webster, Vol. II, p. 182; J. C. Redpatli, Vol. II, p. 150; 

 Kerrick vVrtomanoff, Vol. II, p. 99. 



*J. Stanley Brown, Vol. II, p. 18, 



